THE ROMANCE OF WILLS AND
TESTAMENTS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

SONGS AND LYRICAL POEMS

(1908)

In Preparation

SPIRITUAL TESTAMENTS

OR

PRAYERS AND PREFACES FROM
WILLS, &c.

THE
ROMANCE OF WILLS
AND TESTAMENTS

BY
EDGAR VINE HALL

T. FISHER UNWIN
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20

1912

(All rights reserved.)

“My Life’s my dying day, wherein I still Am making, alter and correct my Will.” Francis Quarles.

“Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land.” Christina G. Rossetti.

“Of Carthage wall I was a stone O’h Mortals Read with Pity Time consumes all it spareth none Man, Mountain, Town nor City. Therefore O’h Mortals now bethink You where unto you must, Since now such Stately Buildings Lie Buried in the dust. Thomas Hughes, 1663.”

The Carthage Stone, S. Dunstan’s Church, Stepney.

PREFACE

By way of preface it is necessary to explain the sources from which the material for the following pages is taken. The chief feature of these essays consists, I think, in the large amount of original matter rescued from the multitudinous MS. volumes of wills, &c., which are preserved at Somerset House and elsewhere.

As in death, so in those volumes, small and great rest side by side. Of the majority their wills, or, if they died without wills, their intestacies, are their only memorials. But it is fascinating to come suddenly upon some well-known name. In a volume of intestacies of the year 1674, for instance, is an entry stating that administration was granted to Elizabeth Milton, widow of John Milton, late of the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, his nuncupative will not having been proved—“testamento nuncupativo dicti defuncti ... per antedictam Elizabetham Milton allegato nondum probato.”

Different types and times, the lighter or the more serious pages of this book, will appeal to different readers. I would, for my part, especially suggest attention to wills illustrative of times of plague as likely to interest students of human nature and history. Time and opportunity for research have been limited—not unfortunately, perhaps. Amid greater abundance of material, choice would have been the more perplexing.

It is desired to make full acknowledgment of the various printed books which I have perused, and from which I have sometimes borrowed, viz.: such books as “Wills from Doctors’ Commons” (Nichols and Bruce), “Fifty English Wills” (Furnivall), “North Country Wills” (Surtees Society), “Testamenta Eboracensia” (Surtees Society), “Testamenta Vetusta” (Nicolas), “Testamenta Cantiana” (Duncan and Hussey), “Wells Wills” (Weaver), “Lincoln Wills” (Gibbons), “Royal Wills” (Nichols), “A History of English Law” (Holdsworth).

Again, there are books, not directly connected with the subject, in which wills or pertinent tales occur. In this class I am indebted to such books as Messrs. Maclehose’s edition of “An Historical Relation of Ceylon” (Robert Knox), “Anna Van Schurman” (Una Birch), “Bygone Leicestershire” (Andrews), “The Old Sea-Port of Whitby” (Gaskin), “Beckenham Past and Present” (Borrowman), “Walks in Islington” (Cromwell), “Gentleman’s Magazine,” “Table Book” (Hone), “London” (Knight), “Ancient Monuments” (Weever), “Seventeenth Century Men of Latitude” (George), “Ancestral Stories and English Eccentrics” (Timbs), “Haunted Houses” (Harper), “Real Ghost Stories” (Stead), “Naturalisation of the Supernatural” (Podmore), “Dreams and Ghosts” (Lang), “Folk Lore and Folk Stories of Wales” (Trevelyan), “The Annals of Psychical Science,” and “The Occult Review.”

Especial acknowledgment is due to Messrs. Constable and Co. for permission to make use of articles in “The Ancestor”; to Mr. C. L. Kingsford and the Delegates of the Oxford University Press for permission to introduce the story of the last days of Elizabeth Stow, as contained in Mr. Kingsford’s Introduction to his edition of Stow’s “Survey”; and to Mr. R. de M. Rudolf for valuable illustrations drawn from his book, “Clapham Before 1700 a.d.”

The idea of this book is the writer’s own. It was inevitable that the idea should have been anticipated, but of such anticipation I was unaware until the book was under weigh. The nearest approaches which I have read are Mrs. Byrne’s “Curiosities of the Search Room: A Collection of Serious and Whimsical Wills” (1880), and Walter Tegg’s “Wills of Their Own: Curious, Eccentric, and Benevolent” (1876), to both of which I acknowledge indebtedness. But those who are interested should repair, if possible, to their entertaining pages. An earlier anticipatory volume is G. Peignot’s excellent “Choix de Testamens Anciens et Modernes, Remarquables par leur Importance, leur Singularité, ou leur Bizarrerie” (1829).

Since these essays were written Mr. Virgil M. Harris, of St. Louis, Missouri, has published at Boston, U.S.A., a large collection of wills under the title, “Ancient, Curious, and Famous Wills,” a work, however, distinct in scope and style from the present book.

Scattered about these pages are instances of wills, &c., gathered from newspapers from time to time. This source, also, is gratefully recognised. Lastly, I have to express my thanks to Mr. Fincham, of Somerset House, for affording me facilities to introduce two or three excellent illustrations of my theme.

Other references are mentioned in the text. If any work to which I am indebted in any respect has not been acknowledged, I trust I may be accorded a ready pardon.

E. VINE HALL.

Wimbledon.

CONTENTS

The Romance of Wills and
Testaments

CHAPTER I
THE ROMANCE OF WILLS

I

“The older I grow,” Mr. E. V. Lucas has said, “the less, I find, do I want to read about anything but human beings.... But human beings, as human beings, are not enough; they must, to interest me, have qualities of simplicity or candour or quaintness.”

The words of the writer are peculiarly apt to describe the charm of wills. But the older we grow, the more do men and women, by reason only of their humanity, absorb our interest. In wills human nature is most vividly and variously displayed. In wills the dead speak, and in a manner live again. The poor and the rich, men learned and men illiterate, all alike have made interesting wills. In some cases humour and pathos are more unconscious, in others opportunity for effect is greater; but in wills of every class, and of every age or form, there is much worthy of remark.

Historically they are invaluable records. In them are reflected all social, political, and religious revolutions. By them the history of families or places is preserved and illuminated. As long ago as the sixteenth century John Stow realised their value, and often referred to them in his “Survey of London.” No local record to-day would be complete without the wills of its worthies.

There is unrivalled scope for the imagination in perusing the last dispositions of the dead. How easy it is, with these documents before us, to picture the figures of each generation; the fervent Catholic of the fifteenth century, the pious benefactor of the sixteenth, the “heroic English gentleman” of the seventeenth, the Whig or Tory of the eighteenth; and at all times the homely or eccentric testator who allows many a secret comedy or tragedy to appear, many a prejudice or foible, many a sentiment of resignation or revolt. Some give the impression of peevishness and irresolution, of spite or hate; some of sentimental or petty desires; some of serene care for the future, of dignity and calm.

Little, indeed, in all literature is more arresting than the revelation of personality, the unveiling of intimacies that are seldom seen: in wills these intimacies occur, the veil is withdrawn, in a manner that elsewhere can rarely be observed. Whether they be light or serious, amusing or tragic, the occurrence of such vivid traits in a will gives them a character peculiarly humorous or correspondingly sad. The idiosyncrasy is magnified, the bias more distorted, when placed in such a setting.

On the other hand, the interest of a will may arise not merely or so much from its provisions in themselves, as from our knowledge of the inner history of the testator’s life and death. Bishop Corbet, that witty and jovial soul, was one of those fathers who, for all their love and longing, for all their piety, are disgraced by their sons. In his will, dated July 7, 1635, and proved on the 5th of the following September, he wrote: “I commit and commend the nurture education and maintenance of my son and daughter into the faithful and loving care of my mother-in-law, declaring my intent by this my last will, as I have often in my health expressed the same, that my desire is that my said son be brought up in good learning, and that as soon as he shall be fit be placed in Oxford or Cambridge, where I require him upon my blessing to apply himself to his books studiously and industriously.”

He had in “health expressed the same” by verse: but the son Vincent, in spite of prayer and admonition, was a ne’er-do-well, and after the Bishop’s death a beggar in London. These lines were addressed to him upon his third birthday by his fond but ill-requited father:—

“I wish thee, Vin., before all wealth, Both bodily and ghostly health: Nor too much wealth, nor wit, come to thee, So much of either may undo thee. I wish thee learning, not for show, Enough for to instruct, and know; Not such as gentlemen require, To prate at table, or at fire. I wish thee all thy mother’s graces, Thy father’s fortune, and his places. I wish thee friends, and one at court, Not to build on but support; To keep thee, not in doing many Oppressions, but from suffering any. I wish thee peace in all thy ways, Nor lazy nor contentious days; And when thy soul and body part, As innocent as now thou art.”

Or take the case of the Gills, father and son. Alexander Gill, senior, was High Master of St. Paul’s School from 1608 to 1635, and is famous as having numbered Milton among his pupils. A degree of fame is also his for the unsparing use of the rod, which he wielded even upon his son, the under master:

“‘O good Sir,’ then cry’d he, ‘In private let it be, And do not sauce me openly.’”

In his will we see that as he had ruled in his lifetime, so he would have his wife rule after him. “And although it may seem needless to charge my sons so professed how they should honour their mother, yet I hold it fit in and by this my last will to leave this precept unto them as my last remembrance, charging them as much as I can that, as they hope for a blessing of God to be with them, to give her that honour which is due as the law of God and nature bindeth them, and in every thing to harken to her counsel and precept and to obey her and be ruled by her.”

Nor is it surprising to find that another son, Nathaniel, “hath refused my correction,” and that he has an “unthankful and injurious brother.” “To my unthankful and injurious brother Simon Gill I freely forgive all debts which he oweth me, with all demands for other charges of food apparel losses and supplies in his want by which I have been much damnified by him, which in a most charitable accompt would come to above fifty pounds; I forgive, I say, all most freely except one bill of eight pounds, which debt I give to my executrix, with hope she will not be troublesome to him by suit thereof except he become troublesome unto her or her children as his manner hath been towards me and others.”

There are other interesting passages, but as a final touch to the will of this stormy nature it may be noticed that he gives “the dust of this wicked carcase to be buried in the dust.” Altogether his will confirms the opinion of Aubrey in his “Brief Lives,” that “Dr. Gill, the father, was a very ingeniose person, as may appear by his writings. Notwithstanding he had moodes and humours.”

Sometimes the circumstances suggest romance. “On the morning of the action between the Portland packet and the Temeraire French privateer, off Guadaloupe, on the 14th of October, 1796,” says Kirby’s “Wonderful Museum” (1803), “Mr. Cunningham, a passenger, who, in a previous engagement sustained by the Portland packet with another privateer, had evinced great courage, observed to the captain that he felt a strong impression that his dissolution was at hand; and on the enemy bearing in sight, he went below and made his will, declaring his hour was come; returning to his station on deck, in a few minutes a bullet verified his prediction.”

So it has been again and again, from the case of Mary Stuart, writing her will in her own hand during the last hours before her execution, or of Archbishop Laud drawing up his will in the Tower, to the case of Señor Ferrer, dictating his testament in the prison chapel at Barcelona.

II

Strange histories, it will be seen, lie behind wills, dull and similar as at first sight the majority appears. The history may not always be explicit, but the suggestion conveyed by some gift or revocation, some phrase or fact, may often be completed by the reader’s imagination. So Dorothy Skipwith, of Catesby, in Lincolnshire (will dated 1677), “did revoke and declare void the legacy of twenty guineas mentioned to be given to Mr. Shomoon, a Frenchman living in Whitehall, which she said she so revoked in regard he refused to come to her in the time of her sickness.”

At times we know something of that which lies beneath the surface of the will. The Duchesse d’Angoulême (died October 19, 1851) forgives, “following the example of her parents,” all who have injured her, expressing her love for France and her gratitude to the Emperor of Austria. And towards the end she states: “I wish all the sheets, papers or books written by my hand, which are in my strong-box or my tables, to be burnt by the executors of my will.” These, we are told, were prayers, meditations, notes which might have caused hurt to the feelings of others, lists of charities and books of account. The will is signed in the name of “Marie Thérèse de France, Comtesse de Maines,” the title which she took in her days of exile.

Anne Davis, spinster, whose will is dated November 14, 1803, reveals, or half-reveals, some family trouble. She directs that “in case of my demise my poor decayed body to be decently interred in the burying ground of Marybone upon the grave where my late dear aunt and friend lays; her name is on a stone, and I desire mine to be put on the stone.... I desire to have a patent coffin lined on the outside with the best black cloth, nails, etc., etc., and every thing that is proper on this occasion, the best hearse and one coach with the black velvet feathers and porters. I desire Mr. William Joachim, Mrs. Joachim, Miss Joachim and Mrs. Toby ... to see my poor decayed body decently buried upon my dear aunt’s grave,” and “I desire Mr. William Joachim, my executor, will advertise for my brother Mr. William Davis. The last time I ever saw him was the 8th of May, 1794, for he desired to see my dear aunt when she lay dead. He said he was going down to Portsmouth in the agency line. May God forgive him for all his unkindness to me; I freely forgive him, and please God that he may make a proper use of what I have left him.”

Edward Roberts, bachelor, of the parish of St. Clement’s Danes (but when he made his will in July, 1664, on board the Great Eagle), was open and emotional: “Whensoever it shall please God to call me out of the world, whether I die by sea or by land, I do give will and bequeath all that ever I have or shall leave behind me at my death ... unto Elizabeth Jones whom I love with all my heart and above all women in the world. And if I had a thousand pounds or neversomuch she should have every groat of it.”

It needs no subtlety of imagination to diagnose his case; but one would like to unravel the story of romantic tenderness that seems to lurk behind the simple will of a Richard Mathews, servant to Hugh Hamersley, of Spring Gardens, St. Martins-in-the-Fields. He died (was it of love?) on or before the 10th of October, 1779. His will was dated October 5th, and after some legacies, including one to Mrs. Collis, his “late worthy fellow-servant,” he continues: “It is my further desire that 5s. apiece may be given to the men as carries me to church, and it is my further desire to be buried in a decent manner and my body laid by a young woman who died at the Rev. Mr. Ellet’s some time ago.”

That the lover is careful to choose suitably his last resting-place we know from the will of Chrysostom in “Don Quixote.” “‘This morning that famous student-shepherd called Chrysostom died, and it is rumoured that he died of love for that devil of a village girl, the daughter of Guillermo the Rich, she that wanders about the wolds here in the dress of a shepherdess.’ ‘You mean Marcela?’ said one. ‘Her I mean,’ answered the goatherd; ‘and the best of it is, he has directed in his will that he is to be buried in the fields like a Moor, and at the foot of the rock where the Cork-tree spring is, because, as the story goes (and they say he himself said so) that was the place where he first saw her.’” With similar sentiment Sir Miles St. John, in Lord Lytton’s “Lucretia,” by his will requested that a small miniature in his writing-desk should be placed in his coffin. “That last injunction was more than a sentiment: it bespoke the moral conviction of the happiness the original might have conferred on his life.”

In fiction we may realise what terrible deeds or poignant memories are revived and referred to by the clauses of a will. Thus in Mrs. Henry Wood’s “George Canterbury’s Will” we know, when Mrs. Dawke’s will is read, that her husband is the murderer of her child: “To my present husband ... five-and-twenty pounds, wherewith to purchase a mourning ring, which he will wear in remembrance of my dear child, Thomas Canterbury.”

In real wills such knowledge is often hidden from us. Yet innumerable touches, tender or strange, harsh or sweet, break through their monotony; ways of life and attitudes of thought, records of deeds or feelings long ago, are brought vividly before us. Do not the romance and spirit of England live again in such a document as this? “Right Worshipful, I safely arrived in the Downs from the Straits the 22nd day of March last and got to London on Easter Eve, where I presented myself to the Dean of Westminster and other friends. But on Easter Monday I was engaged by Sir William Penn to go along with him to the Great Fleet under the command of his Royal Highness the Duke of York, the which I readily embraced as thinking it my duty to appear wheresoever I may in probability do the Church, my Prince, and my Country, the best service possible. I am at present constituted chaplain on board the Unicorn where the Lord Peterborough is to sail. Our fleet I can assure you is in a gallant posture, lying not far from Harwich, at all points ready for action. I freely refer myself to the goodness of my God, who hath preserved me hitherto in many dangers (viz.) of battle shipwrecks fire and storms, etc. And if I shall be taken out of the world my desires are as heretofore (viz.) that such moneys of mine as are in your Worship’s hands, or aught else that may be any ways due to me from Christ Church, be about Michaelmas next, 1665, paid unto Alexander Vincent, the eldest son of my brother Ambrose Vincent, or if he shall not then be living unto my eldest surviving nephew whether by brother or sister. I wish all prosperity and happiness to yourself, Dr. Allestry and my friends in Christ Church, and remain your much obliged and true friend and servant John Vincent. (From aboard the Unicorn riding with the Fleet not far from Harwich April 12, 1665.)”

But the seafaring spirit has not always run so high, as the will of a Richard French reveals. “At the Cowes in the Isle of Wight the 18th of July, 1636. Whereas by reason of certain disabilities which I have found in myself more than ordinary this voyage, every man being almost disencouraged in respect of the smallness of the vessel and desperateness of the journey, because that my mate Robert Anderson hath by his no small industry and to the maintaining of my credit undertaken this voyage with me and still carefully pursued, I do here in this paper confirm and refer over unto him by deed of gift, conditionally he goes this journey and I miscarry, all the goods belonging to me in the pinnace.” Evidently the testator did miscarry, for the document was proved on the 19th of August, a month and a day after its execution.

III

Thomas Eden, whose will is dated at Wimbledon, August 14, 1803, only whets the appetite: “I, Thomas Eden, of sound mind and understanding, though gradually failing in personal strength from advance in years and what I have gone through in my life, do make this my last will and testament.” But many curious items of biography emerge from wills. Sometimes they are accidental or incidental; at other times the testator makes much of them. Philip, fifth Earl of Pembroke, bequeathed “to Thomas May, whose nose I did break at a mascarade, five shillings.” Recently a legacy was left to one whom the testator had nearly burned to death, another to one whom a testator had saved from drowning. “I have been very unfortunate,” wrote a lady lately deceased. “I thought to have a companion for the rest of my days by remarrying, but am once more stranded and alone.”

Sir John Gayer, an illustrious seventeenth-century citizen of London, is still remembered in an annual sermon at St. Katharine Cree, Leadenhall Street, preached by direction of his will in commemoration of his escape from a lion on the coast of Africa. Ezekiel Nash (will dated March 27, 1800) left a charitable legacy for his preservation in an engagement with a French frigate on March the 8th, 1762. A late manager to a shipping company directed that on his tomb should be inscribed the words:

“Let on his soul kind judgment fall, Who did his best for one and all,”

and the following summary of his achievements: “He helped to change paddle tugs to screw, to initiate high pressure and twin screws for ocean-going steamers, to introduce the Steam line Conference with the rebate system, and to start the Shipping Federation, the London Shipping Exchange, and the British Empire League.”

Richard Forster, in his will dated November 15, 1728, opens with some remarks on the Church and his position therein. “In the name of God Amen. I Richard Forster, an unworthy minister of Jesus Christ, advanced into the order of Christian priesthood according to the usage of the Church of England, the soundest and best constituted part of the Catholic Church, (a great number of whose parochial clergy have been unhappily deprived of a great part of their revenues by the injurious appropriation of tythes glebes and parsonage houses under the iniquity of Popery,) and intending to spend the remainder of my days in the communion and service of this Church, having by the providence of God and the kindness of my friends been first promoted to the Rectory of Beckly, in Sussex, and after to that of Crundale, in Kent, and lastly to the Vicarage of Eastchurch, in Sheppey, (the defects of my duty in all which parishes I pray God of His infinite mercy to pardon,) and being advanced into the seventy-eighth year of my age by the distinguishing favour of God with a sound mind and memory, though with a weak body, I do make and ordain this my last will and testament.”

John Wakring’s will, proved June 14, 1665, was written at Portsmouth in the form of a letter from on board the Resolution, November 23, 1664: “Mistress Elizabeth, my kind love and best respects presented unto you, hoping these few lines will find you in good health as I was at the present writing hereof. I have presumed, hoping it will be acceptable, to acquaint you of the receival of your letter wherein I received much joy to hear of your welfare. I should think myself the happiest man alive if I could attain so much time as for to see you before my departure, but since God has decreed it otherwise by reason of much business imposed upon me, nevertheless I would have you accept of all that is mine as yours if God shall deal with me otherwise than I do expect. In the meantime I would entreat you for to have a great care of what you have in your custody, because it may stand you in good stead hereafter, which is the letter of attorney which I left you in for the receival of all that is due unto me and my servant from the time I came out as clerk and everything else. Furthermore, I give you to understand that I am at the time Sir William Barkley’s cook and am in very much respect on all sides, and hope, for all these wars, I shall see you in good estate if God permit. So with my humble duty to your mother, and my kind love to your brother and sister and to all the rest of my friends in general, I rest yours, if God bless and permit me life, John Wakring.”

It is in these informal wills, naturally, that such delightful glimpses are more frequently obtained, and perhaps one other example may be tolerated. It is late in the next century, very different in tone from the seventeenth-century heroes, John Vincent or John Wakring. Jane Bowdler was an invalid, a spinster of Bath. The language of her will, proved March 4, 1786, is characteristic of the century. “My dear and ever honoured father, from the great indulgence you have always expressed for me I am led to believe that it will still be a satisfaction to you to comply with some little requests of mine, and therefore I will mention a few things which I would beg you to do for me after my death. And first I beg to repeat the sincerest assurances of my duty love and gratitude to you and my mother, and I pray to God to bless you and reward you for all your kindness to me. I wish these sentiments had been better expressed in my lifetime, but I fear my ill health and loss of speech have sometimes made me a burden to my friends as well as in some degree to myself. These considerations will, however, I trust contribute to reconcile them to my death, since the enjoyment of society has long been in a great measure taken away. Let us rejoice in an humble but comfortable hope that we shall meet again in a far happier state to be separated no more. May God of His infinite mercy grant it.”

IV

Above all, the thought that a will is nothing if not a preparation for death gives to its study the ultimate significance. For what can be more momentous than decisions then; what more humorous, in the older and deeper sense, than foibles and follies at such an hour? What can be more arresting than the persistence which prompts a man at the approach of death to seal his life’s work, evil or beneficent, with the sanction of his will? “Even on the verge of the grave he sought to slake his ambition by unlawful means; and he succeeded,” says Dr. August Fournier of Napoleon I. Charles V., in a codicil executed a few days before his death, solemnly exhorts his son to extirpate the heresy of Luther. Señor Ferrer dictates his will in the prison chapel at Barcelona, emphasising the salient points of his belief. There is no retractation or regret.

John Boyce, “he being desperately wounded in one of his legs the 25th day of July, 1666, in the engagement with the Hollanders” sets his hand and seal to his testament “first in the presence of my God above, and in the presence of us John King, Robert Goulding.” There is a fine simplicity and solemnity in that. The Noble Robert Dunant, whose will is dated at Geneva, August 12, 1768, writes simply and solemnly too. “I the underwritten Counsellor of State, having first humbled myself before God and implored the assistance of His good Spirit to conduct me wisely as well in the present as all the other acts of my life, have made and do make my will in the following manner.”

But casual and worldly wills are common enough. A few words on a picture-postcard, “All for mother” on an old envelope, have been thought enough, or have proved enough for a valid will. Mrs. Lirriper’s legacy, readers of Dickens will remember, was written in pencil on the back of the ace of hearts. “To the authorities. When I am dead pray send what is left, as a last legacy, to Mrs. Lirriper, eighty-one Norfolk Street, Strand, London.”

With others the preparation for death is a pious literary task. Recently a little volume found its way into the writer’s hands from the Maison du Sacré Cœur de Beauvais, a “Testament Spirituel,” which, though not executed for a court of law, must have found favour in the courts of heaven. In wills, indeed, we see the romance of souls. Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant dedications of the soul to God, whether in the fifteenth or the sixteenth century, are often very beautiful and touching. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the custom and tradition have departed. Only occasionally a Catholic or a fervent Evangelical recalls forgotten days. Some examples of eighteenth-century piety will be given later, but these essays would not be complete without other illustrations.

As an example from Catholic England the following is typical: “In the name of God, Amen. I Dame Anne Haydon, widow, being in my whole mind and of good memory the XVIIth day of December in the year of our Lord God 1509, and in the first year of King Henry the VIIIth, make this my testament and last will in manner and form following, that is to say, First, gracious Jesu, I as a sinful creature by reason of my demerits not worthy to be accepted into the holy company of heaven to continue in that holy place, Lord, without Thy great and large mercy and grace, (the which through Thy Passion to every Christian man meekly and lowly asking graciously grantest): Wherefore I now being in my full and whole mind and in perfect love and charity, and in steadfast faith, ask and cry Thee, Jesu, our Lady Saint Mary Thy blessed Mother, all the holy company of heaven, and all the world, mercy, trusting verily that through Thy Passion and with the succour and relief of that gracious Lady Thy Mother and Maid to sinners to her calling for help of her great pity greatly and very comfortable: Wherefore, blessed Jesu, I commit my soul to Thee and to Thy blessed Mother our Lady Saint Mary and to all saints of heaven through the mean and help of St. John Baptist, St. Anne, St. Mary Magdalen and St. Christopher mine avouers. And my sinful body to be buried in the Chapel of St. Luke in the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity of Norwich, if I die in Norwich or in Norfolk.”

Such is a common form, diversified by individual and expressive variations, of wills in those days. The Reformation changed the form but not the spirit of these avowals. “I render back,” wrote Sarah Ward in 1662, “into the hands of my God and Creator the soul I received from Him, humbly desiring His fatherly goodness for the infinite merit of His Son Jesus Christ and His all-sufficient Passion, (on which I wholly rely, disclaiming any confidence in saints or angels,) that He would make it partaker of eternal life and a citizen of His heavenly Kingdom. My body I bequeath to the earth whence it was taken, firmly believing the resurrection of the dead, and that I shall rise again in the last day, and see God in my flesh with the self-same eyes I now use and no other. The manner of interring it I leave wholly to my executors ... being no farther solicitous for so contemptible a remnant than as it is yet the hospital of a reasonable soul.”

But with the fervent eloquence of Thomas Peniston, of St. Margaret’s, near the City of Rochester, Esquire (proved the 5th of September, 1601), these considerations must be concluded. “In the Name of the most holy and incomprehensible Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, in Person three, in power one, almighty and everlasting God, Creator of Heaven and Earth and all therein contained, to whose glorious Deity I poor wretch His creature do from the bottom of my heart and soul render most humble and most hearty thanks for all His innumerable benefits bestowed on me, as my creation of nought, my redemption by that divine mystery of the Incarnation and generous Passion of my sweet Saviour Jesus Christ, when I was through the offence of my forefather Adam become worse than nought, my continual preservation in the life present, mine election to Salvation before the foundations of the world were laid, my assured hope of glorification in time to come through His infinite mercy by the mediation of Jesus Christ, and for all whatsoever hath befallen me of good since my first entrance into this vale of misery, acknowledging them all to have proceeded merely of His unspeakable bounty and goodness without any spark of merit or desert in myself, and so much the more am I bound to Him for the same, most humbly beseeching His most glorious Majesty to accept in good part this my sincere sacrifice of thanksgiving as the only oblation which my poor sin-distressed soul in all humbleness of heart and ferventest spiritual zeal can offer unto Him for all those His manifold graces towards me, and that it will please Him for His mercy’s sake in the blood of that immaculate Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, to vouchsafe to continue His gracious goodness towards me both now and at all times hereafter, and at the present by the assistance of His Holy Spirit so to direct me in the setting down of this my last will and testament as the same may best sort to His glory, my comfort, and the good of those whom it may concern.... And first as the most principal part I do with a free and cheerful heart bequeath my soul unto almighty God the Creator and Redeemer thereof, most humbly beseeching Him for His mercies’ sake through Jesus Christ the only begotten and well-beloved Son of God the Father, in whom He is well pleased, to receive the same into His most holy and gracious protection, cleansing and purging the sinful deformities thereof with the precious blood of that my only sweet Saviour, and to bury all my transgressions and offences of what nature or kind soever in the bottom of the sea, that they never rise up in judgment against me, but that I (though of myself the most miserable sinner alive), through His infinite and unspeakable mercy by His loving imputation of the perfect righteousness and true obedience of that my most sweet Saviour Jesus Christ, who being perfect God became man, and after full performance of God’s most holy laws and commandments endured the most horrible tortures of death thereby to save my poor soul from the intolerable and endless torments of hell fire, which of itself (ah woe is me therefore) it hath deserved, and to make it inheritable to the unspeakable joys in Heaven; of which His most gracious favour being throughly assured by His holy Spirit in my soul which continually warranteth me to sing all honour, glory and praise unto my dear Father in Heaven, who in His mercy, (which by many thousand degrees exceedeth my manifold transgressions,) hath created and adopted me to be an heir of His heavenly and everlasting kingdom, I most assuredly hope and undoubtedly expect that whenso it shall please His incomprehensible Deity the fullness of time to be expired, this poor soul of mine being through His all-working power knit again to this my flesh which then shall be made incorruptible and immortal, I shall without end in Heaven enjoy the sight of my most glorious and everlasting God my Creator, Redeemer and Comforter, and there for ever with the holy saints, angels and archangels, laud honour praise and worship His most holy Name to my infinite unspeakable and sempiternal comfort. And as concerning my body which I hope I shall be always at the pleasure of my good God most ready to yield up, I will that after my death the same shall be buried in decent sort by the direction of my executors in the Cathedral Church of Rochester according to my degree and calling.”

V

It will readily be realised how wills from time to time illustrate the bare facts of history, with what vividness they might invest them if more frequently cited. Thus Margaret, Lady Hungerford, in 1476 enjoins her heirs not to disturb any of the alienations of her property, which she had been obliged to make owing to “seasons of trouble time late passed,” viz., the Wars of the Roses. Richard Lumley, Knight, Lord Viscount Lumley, writes on the 13th of April, in the thirteenth year of Charles II.: “And could I have done more for my family than I have done I would; and had done much more for them had not I had so great losses by the late calamitous times.”

Richard Burnand, of Knaresborough (1591), gives to his cousin “Dynnys Baynebrigge and his wife two silver goblets, worth in value XLs a piece, with my arms and name upon them, and they to have the use of them during their lives; and after their deceases I give the same goblets unto Anne Faux and Elizabeth Faux.” To Guy Faux he gives “two angels, to make him a ring.” This Guy is the celebrated and almost mythical figure in whose honour bonfires still flare on November 5th. Anne and Elizabeth were his sisters, and Mrs. Baynebrigge, widow of Edward Fawkes, their mother. Moreover, by the wills of Robert Wilcox in 1627, and of Luke Jackson in 1630, sermons were directed to be preached yearly on November 5th in honour of the discovery of the plot.

In days to come, perhaps, peculiar interest will attach to the will of Mlle. Meunier, the Frenchwoman who sympathised with the views of Ferrer and left him a considerable legacy some ten years before his execution. But who can estimate the value of Raisley Calvert’s legacy to Wordsworth, whereby the poet was relieved of the deadening care of money-making?

“A youth—(he bore The name of Calvert—it shall live, if words Of mine can give it life,) in firm belief That by endowments not from me withheld Good might me furthered—in his last decay By a bequest sufficient for my needs Enabled me to pause for choice, and walk At large and unrestrained, nor damped too soon By mortal cares. Himself no Poet, yet Far less a common follower of the world, He deemed that my pursuits and labours lay Apart from all that leads to wealth, or even A necessary maintenance insures, Without some hazard to the finer sense; He cleared a passage for me, and the stream Flowed in the bent of Nature.”

Changes and controversies in the Church find an echo in wills. Dr. Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, whose will was made about three weeks before his death (January 29, 1662-3) professes his faith at a significant date: “And here I do profess that as I have lived so I desire and—by the grace of God—resolve, to die in the communion of the Catholic Church of Christ, and a true son of the Church of England: which, as it stands by law established, to be both in doctrine and worship agreeable to the word of God, and in the most material points of both conformable to the faith and practice of the godly Churches of Christ in the primitive and purer times, I do firmly believe: led so to do, not so much from the force of custom and education—to which the greatest part of mankind owe their particular different persuasions in point of Religion,—as upon the clear evidence of truth and reason, after a serious and impartial examination of the grounds, as well of Popery as Puritanism, according to that measure of understanding, and those opportunities which God hath afforded me: and herein I am abundantly satisfied that the schism which the Papists on the one hand, and the superstitions which the Puritans on the other, lay to our charge, are very justly chargeable upon themselves respectively. Wherefore I humbly beseech Almighty God, the Father of mercies, to preserve the Church by His power and providence, in peace, truth, and godliness, evermore to the world’s end: which doubtless He will do, if the wickedness and security of a sinful people—and particularly the sins that are so rife, and seem daily to increase among us, of unthankfulness, riot and sacrilege—do not tempt His patience to the contrary. And I also further humbly beseech Him, that it would please Him to give unto our gracious Sovereign, the reverend Bishops, and the Parliament, timely to consider the great danger that visibly threatens this Church in point of religion by the late great increase of Popery, and in point of revenue by sacrilegious inclosures; and to provide such wholesome and effectual remedies, as may prevent the same before it be too late.”

Similarly, Richard Ward, whose will is dated February 6, 1664-5, bequeaths his “body to the earth whence it was taken, to be decently and Christianly buried according to the order of the Church of England ... wishing and praying from my very soul that this sinful and unthankful kingdom may never forget or forfeit that most miraculous mercy of God in restoring and establishing it.” Such contemporary comments are fascinating; so, too, the spirit of the same testator who dedicates his “young tender and only son George Ward” to the service of the Church, “if God shall so dispose his heart, which I trust He will because I am not without hopes that God Almighty did accept of my solemn dedication of him before he was formed in the womb. And the good God be his guide and portion.” It is not surprising to find this gentle spirit “languishing under the fatherly visitation of my most gracious God, to whose good pleasure I with all cheerfulness submit,” and speaking of his “dear sweet wife” and “dear and tenderly loving wife.”

The Restoration is a landmark in history. But there are passages in wills which recall the clash of controversialists forgotten now, yet provocative of fierce animosities in their time. Edward Evanson, who became Rector of Tewkesbury in 1769, was a modernist and innovator, a Richard Meynell of his day. In reading the services he would adapt words or phrases at pleasure, and in the lessons point out errors of translation. But a crisis was provoked by a sermon on the Resurrection preached at Easter, 1771. He was prosecuted in the Consistory Court of Gloucester, for “depraving the public worship of God contained in the liturgy of the Church of England, asserting the same to be superstitious and unchristian, preaching, writing, and conversing against the creeds and the divinity of our Saviour, and assuming to himself the power of making arbitrary alterations in his performance of the public worship.” Finally the charge fell through, on technical grounds, in 1777, but Mr. N. Havard, town clerk of Tewkesbury, published a narrative of the case. After a life of controversy Evanson died on September 25, 1805.

We can trace out bequests both for and against this troubler of the peace. Penelope Taylor, of Worcester, a widow with views beyond the circle of her home, gave by a codicil dated July 5, 1776, to Mr. Havard £200 to testify her approbation of his conduct “in the prosecution against Mr. Evanson, Vicar of Tewkesbury, and toward the expense of that laudable suit in the defence of Christianity.”

But Dr. Messenger Monsey, with no measured language, in his will dated twelve years later, upholds the other side. The controversy was not forgotten. Dr. Monsey was a contemporary of Dr. Johnson, one who “talked bawdy” in the latter’s less than elegant phrase. His will, in several respects noteworthy, must appear again. He had given, he says, by a previous will an annuity of £50 to Mr. Evanson; but since he had declined it, the testator substituted a nominal gift of £10 per annum, to manifest his great regard “for my friend Mr. Edward Evanson, and the opinions I have of his abilities and integrity in standing forth so ably as he has done in support of reason and true religion against the nonsense jargon and impiety so avowedly professed by a set of A. B————ps, D————ns, P————ts, and D————cons, who stood forth in defence of creeds articles and subscriptions without suffering or promoting any reformation for establishing the purity and simplicity of reasonable Christianity.”

Last of all died Evanson. His will is disappointing. It opens thus: “I Edward Evanson think it my duty under present circumstances to dispose of that portion of worldly property with which it hath pleased the divine providence of God to bless me.” Otherwise there is no reference to religion, none to his stormy life, save this incidental remark: “Conscientious objections to the Liturgy of the Established Church having prevented my standing godfather for my brother-in-law Mr. William Alchorne’s son, which I should otherwise have done, in lieu of the customary baptismal gifts I now give and bequeath to Mr. Wm. Alchorne aforesaid the sum of £50 in trust and for the sole use of his son Evanson Alchorne.” His wife Dorothy was residuary legatee, and the will, witnessed by three servants, was dated April 8, 1805, and proved on October 16th. He was a fighter; but not one of those who make militant wills, proclaiming, as it were with the last breath, their prepossessions and beliefs.

VI

“When London’s plague, that day by day enrolled His thousands dead, nor deigned his rage to abate Till grass was green in silent Bishopsgate, Had come and passed like thunder—still, ’tis told, The monster, driven to earth, in hovels old And haunts obscure, though dormant, lingered late, Till the dread Fire, one roaring wave of fate, Rose, and swept clean his last retreat and hold.” William Watson.

It was to be expected that the plagues would leave their mark on these records, and very tragic such traces are. Many were driven to make their wills while still in health, but others delayed till the sickness had seized them. Of the latter more will be quoted hereafter; a few of the former may here illustrate the plague of 1665. It is strange that Defoe did not embellish his narrative with documents so vivid.

Death came swiftly, nor was it possible always to set the will down in writing. “Memorandum that on or about the nineteenth day of July in the year of our Lord God 1665 Edward Thompson, late of the parish of St. Paul’s in Covent Garden in the County of Middlesex, shoemaker, being then of good health of body and of good or perfect memory, but his house being then shut up and visited with the plague, and one of his children shortly before dying in the house of the same disease, he declared his last will and testament nuncupative, or by word of mouth, in these or the like words following, that is to say: It is my last will and desire that, if it please God to take me out of this world by this present visitation, that then my loving friend and cousin, Mr. Andrew Caldwall, shall take care of my son Alexander Thompson, (being then his only surviving child) and shall bring him up and put him forth an apprentice, and when my said son shall come to full age to give him a just account of my estate and pay unto him what shall be then remaining thereof in his hands. But if it shall please God that my said son Alexander shall die also, then after the death of my said son I give to my two brothers in Scotland and to their children 1/- apiece. And all the rest of my goods, chattels and estate whatsoever I give and bequeath unto the said Andrew Caldwall, in regard I have been more beholding unto him than to my brothers or to any friend in the world.” Evidently he was struck down swiftly, for on the 5th of August following this will was proved.

We see the fear of death hanging over the town, and how hastily wills were prepared. “My mother desired me on her death bed to be a brother to my sister Mary Grover, and if she lived to give her in money ten pounds, (and) a gold ring which was my mother’s.... If it should please God to take me away, and my sister alive, I desire she should have all that is her’s.... John Hunt will be one to see that it be not baffled away but carefully looked to for the good of my poor sister.... And my desire is that she be defrauded of none, but that care be taken for the child’s bringing up. As for my burial accordingly to the discretion of my overseers: if healthy times decently, if other times according to their appointment. This I writ myself for fear I should be deprived by sudden death.... The trunk at Mr. Hall’s and chest and box are top full of the best of linen and other things, and my trunk is top full at the Tavern.... If I die I pray let this be engrossed and put for my will in court. Written 1st September, 1665.” (John Grover, proved May 13, 1666.)

Henry Dickens, of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, cordwainer, makes his will “being at this present sick and weak in body, but of sound and perfect mind and memory, for which I give all possible praise and thanks to Almighty God, and not knowing what may befall me in these sad times of God’s heavy visitation with the plague, (dated September 6, 1665, proved May 4, 1666);” Ralph Tymberlake, tallow chandler, “calling to mind the great uncertainty of this life, especially at this time when the arrows of God’s wrath are amongst us,” (dated September 9, 1665, proved September 20th); and John Garland thus: “The Lord’s hand being evidently gone out against this city, and not knowing how soon the stroke of death may be my portion, in order thereunto I make this my last will and testament. And in the first place I commit my soul into the arms of my Saviour the Lord Jesus in hope of His appearing at the resurrection of the dead, that when He appears I also may appear with Him in glory; and my body to be buried in a decent place and without funeral pomp, and so deep in the earth as not unnaturally to take up other men’s bones or too easily to scratch up my own by others.” (Dated August 15, 1665, proved January 5th following.) What bitter irony that at such a time he wishes to be buried “without funeral pomp”!

But peculiarly pathetic is the will of Henry Mabank. It is a letter to his mother, in the country, perhaps, and dreading every hour to hear that her son was stricken. It was proved on May 4, 1666. “Dear Mother, my duty to you remembered, and my love to my brothers and sisters and to Mr. Rudd and Mistress Rudd and Billy and to Henry Chandler, hoping you are all in good health as I am at this present writing, thanks be to God. Dear Mother, my desire and will is, that if you never see me more that my brother George and sister Betty and sister Ann shall have £100 which is upon bond equally divided between them.... Dear Mother, if it please God that I live till the 7th of August there will be £10 due to me from my master and £3 due the 20th of August upon bond. This £13 I will leave to your disposing. I am not afraid of the sickness, yet it is very near our house. I pray excuse me from writing every week; you shall hear of my welfare in Mrs. Rudd’s letters. So in haste I rest, Your dutiful son till death, Henry Mabank. July the 20th, 1665.”

Finally, the horrors of the plague and its attendant heroisms are recalled by the will of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, proved April 14, 1679. His will is otherwise remarkable, consistent with his fine independent character, and this opportunity may be taken for quoting it in part. How little his wishes were observed students of his life will know, and they will know also how peculiar were the circumstances of his death, which are briefly related at the close of the following essay. “I desire my executors ... to cause my body to be privately buried in the meanest place of burial belonging to that parish or place wherein I shall die but not in the Church, this to be performed without pomp or pageantry, not to be accompanied with numerous attendants either of friends or relations the which as I affected not in my lifetime I would not have imposed on me being dead: to that end, and to avoid being troublesome to the world and especially to the streets when dead, I desire to be buried very early in the morning or very late at night with as much privateness as may be, without any solemn invitation of my acquaintances or kindred as also without any funeral sermon or other harangue, which I do hereby forbid, any monument or other memorial of stone or brass to be made for me, hoping that my failings will be buried with me in the grave without any partial remembrance of evil or good actions, if any such have been, which are so called at the relator’s pleasure. As for the Charity which I have for some years bestowed on the poor of the parish of St. Martin’s in the Fields aforesaid, viz. 10/-in bread on every Lord’s Day or on some day at the beginning of each week, my will is that my executors ... do jointly and severally take care and continue to do the same by themselves for the space of ten years from and after the time of my decease.... And I do further will that the Charity by me given of 2/-per week in bread to the poor of the parish of Selling being the place of my birth[1] ... be weekly continued to be given ... in the same manner during the same time and on the like terms as are already mentioned in the behalf of the poor of the parish of St. Martin’s in the Fields aforesaid, and be continued after the determination of twenty-one years on the same terms therein expressed at the discretion of my executors their heirs or executors and no otherwise. Item: I give unto my brother Mr. Peter Godfrey, if he shall be living at the time of my death and not else, one hundred pounds instead of my great silver flagon once intended him whereon are engraven His Majesty’s Royal Arms with my own adjoined, and was so given unto me by order of the King and Council in memory of the service which God enabled me to perform towards the visited poor in that dreadful year of plague 1665, the which I am always to remember with humility and true thankfulness.... And I do particularly give unto my brother Mr. Michael Godfrey my great flagon aforementioned of the King’s gift.”

After the plague, the fire. That naturally does not loom large in wills, but references may be found. Thus Edmund Calamy, “minister of the gospel,” whose will was dated October 4, 1666, and proved November 14th, gave to his “dear and loving wife,” Anne Calamy, “all the ground whereon my house stood which was lately burned down, called or known by the name and sign of the Rose, and was situate and being in St. Nicholas Lane, London, and all the timber and all the materials which did belong to the same that yet remain unburned, (if any be).” “And as for the manner of my burial, my desire is to be buried in the ruins of Aldermanbury Church; and in regard of my many children my will is that, besides mourning unto my relations, nothing be given at my funeral, not doubting that my friends and acquaintances, who shall come to perform their last office of love to me, will not come out of expectation of anything, but out of pure love and respect to the memory of their deceased friend.” This Edmund Calamy was committed to Newgate on January 6, 1663, the first Nonconformist who suffered for disobedience to the Act of Uniformity. Set free by order of the King, he was driven through the ruins of London, and the sight, it is said, broke his heart. He died on October 29, 1666, and was buried in the ruins of his church, “as near to the place where his pulpit had stood as they could guess.”

Lastly, Thomes Rich (dated July 31, 1672), devised a messuage and premises in Lime Street, St. Andrew Undershaft, the rents to be distributed as to 40s. yearly to the minister of the parish to preach there two sermons, one on New Year’s Day, the other on the third Tuesday in September, in thankfulness to God for the preservation of the parish from the Fire.

VII

Appended to the will of Thomas Appletree, a lengthy document, is the following memorandum: “Be it remembered that on Saturday the one and thirtieth day of March last past before the date hereof (April 27th, 1666) Thomas Appletree, of Dadington, ... Esq., lying sick in his bed, (his brother William Appletree of Dadington aforesaid, Gentleman, being by his bedside, and Lettice Appletree daughter of the said Thomas Appletree being in the same chamber,) his said brother William Appletree said thus unto him:—Brother I know you have made your will, pray where is it? His answer was:—It is in the little trunk at my bed’s feet.”

In this case the survivors seem to have been more anxious than the dying man that the will should not be mislaid. They were not subject to the delicacy of feeling of Mr. Weller in a later age. “Samivel,” said Mr. Weller accosting his son on the morning of the funeral, “I’ve found it, Sammy. I thought it wos there.” “Thought wot wos where?” inquired Sam. “Your mother-in-law’s vill, Sammy,” replied Mr. Weller. “In wirtue o’ vich, them arrangements is to be made as I told you on last night respectin’ the funs.” “Wot, didn’t she tell you were it wos?” inquired Sam. “Not a bit on it, Sammy,” replied Mr. Weller. “We wos a adjestin’ our little differences, and I wos a cheerin’ her spirits and bearin’ her up, so that I forgot to ask anythin’ about it. I don’t know as I should ha’ done it indeed, if I had remembered it,” added Mr. Weller, “for it’s a rum sort o’ thing, Sammy, to go a hankerin’ arter anybody’s property, ven you’re assistin’ ’em in illness. It’s like helping an outside passenger up, ven he’s been pitched off a coach, and puttin’ your hand in his pocket, vile you ask vith a sigh how he finds hisself, Sammy.”

The danger of a will’s loss or destruction preys upon some minds, a subject which must be recurred to in the last chapter of this book. Various expedients to facilitate the finding of the will are adopted. Dr. Thomas Cheyney, Dean of Winchester, whose will was proved in 1760, began a codicil thus: “Whereas by my last will (which may be found in the innermost part of a little walnut bureau with one glass door in my long gallery)....” Lord St. Leonards, the lawyer, made every effort for the safety of his will, it being carefully kept in a strong-box and securely guarded, as was thought; but when he died in 1875, and the box was duly opened, the will was missing after all.

“Thackeray,” says G. W. E. Russell in “Seeing and Hearing,” “did not traffic very much in wills, though, to be sure, Jos. Sedley left £1,000 to Becky Sharp, and the opportune discovery of Lord Ringwood’s will in the pocket of his travelling-carriage simplified Philip’s career. The insolvent swindler, Dr. Firmin, who had robbed his son and absconded to America, left his will ‘in the tortoiseshell secretaire in the consulting-room, under the picture of Abraham offering up Isaac.’”

A missing will is the novelist’s delight. In Miss Everett Green’s “A Will in a Well,” among the incoherent sentences of a dying man, the words “Search well” are overheard. But it needed an acute intellect to realise, after every effort had been made to find a satisfactory last will, that it was a disused well that should have been scoured for the document. In Mrs. Wilfred Ward’s “Great Possessions” a lost will is found, and redeems the testator’s reputation.

No hiding-place is too unlikely. When Lord Hailes died in 1792 no will was to be found. The daughter and only child had given up hope of possessing the mansion-house, but when her servants were locking it up and closing the shutters, from behind a panel there fell the will which secured her the estate. Harris Norman, a pedlar, who died worth over £11,000, left a will which was found in a silk hat; and lately a curious story was told in the Probate Court of a will found in a clock. The deceased’s husband, it was stated, made a search for a will, but was for some time unsuccessful. As the greater part of his wife’s property consisted of freeholds, in which under an intestacy he would take but a curtesy interest, it was with anxiety that the search was made. Eventually, at the back of a clock on the mantelpiece, the will was found, betrayed by the stopping of the clock. Not unnaturally a charge of forgery was set up. It is certainly dangerous, for more than one reason, to hide a will securely away. In this case the judge pronounced in its favour. “What more likely than after the deceased had been worried to make a will for little Hilda (her niece), she thought that she would leave her property to her husband? Was it likely that she would tell any one? Was it not likely that she would put it in some place—as in the back of the clock—which would not be opened for some days after her death?”

On the other hand, the High Court of Bengal, in 1903, refused to admit to probate a will which was stated to have been searched for and found in a tin box formerly in the possession of one who was said to have been the custodian of the will in his lifetime, and the Court said: “We hold that fraud and deceit were practised at the finding of the will.” Certainly wills are given sometimes to friends for custody, and then themselves bequeathed. Charles Johnson, for instance, seaman of the frigate Coventry, in his will dated 1778, stated that he had two wills in his possession, and these at his death he gave to his friend Henry Dye, belonging to the same ship.

“Memorandum, that on the three and twentieth day of July, 1595, this will was found in the little black trunk of the said Elenor Clarke standing at her bed’s foot, being found locked and opened in the presence of us John Worsopp, William Payne, John Smithe.” The heirs of Charles William Minet, who died in 1874, a descendant of a family which had fled from France at the persecution of Protestants in 1686, were not so fortunate. No will could be found, and his manor-house was sold. But in 1905, on a death in another branch of the family, some neglected cases were examined, and in one of them lay the will. It showed that the estate had been settled in tail, and it was accordingly repurchased, that the testator’s intentions might not be frustrated.

But intentionally or unintentionally, a will may be destroyed. The romance of wills breathes from this codicil to the will of a West Indian merchant. “Grenada, 20th March, 1795. I Simpson Strachan, of said Island, and in the town of St. George Northant, do make this codicil to my last will and testament dated 1786, the day and month I do not at present recollect nor can I have recourse to said will by reason of its being buried under ground to prevent its being burnt by the enemy.” Sometimes a happy chance may preserve the tenour of a will. The estate of a testatrix who died in 1872 being at the time valueless, her will was not proved. But recent improvement in certain property made probate a necessity. The original will, however, had been destroyed in a fire, and only the copy of a copy remained. This copy, though imperfectly transcribed, was admitted to probate, subject to obvious emendations.

At other times a more serious problem is presented. A will may be destroyed by the testator, or in his presence, but not necessarily so as to revoke or annul it. Upon this point interesting actions turn from time to time, and curious family histories are disclosed. It is very difficult to decide in some cases whether the deceased himself destroyed the will or whether at the time he approved of its destruction; the time and temper lost, the publicity involved, show how foolish it is to die intestate. If one wishes the estate to devolve under the statutes for the distribution of intestates’ property, it is still possible to make a will stating that this is the testator’s desire.

As foolish is it to die intending that a torn will shall be valid. In 1908 a Yorkshireman died, leaving as his will one that had been torn in fragments by his wife. Next day she pinned the pieces together, and the matter was dismissed as a joke. The testator only laughed when it was suggested that trouble might ensue through the tearing of the will. “By the Wills Act a will might be revoked by tearing by the testator or by his authority and in his presence. This will had undoubtedly been torn up in his presence, but there was no evidence that it had been done by his authority; indeed the evidence was all the other way.... No will could be revived except by a duly executed document, and similarly the testator could have revoked his will by another will had he wished to do so. It was, however, clear that he always regarded the torn will as a good one and examined it to see if it was legible. Something had been said as to all Yorkshiremen being lawyers. They were a hard-headed people, and the testator’s view was quite correct.” So said the learned Judge.

Of all acts which exasperate the human sense of piety and justice, perhaps the most exasperating is the destruction of a will after the death of the deceased. The destruction of the will of George I. by his son George II. is famous in history, but in view of evidence recently adduced we need not enlarge upon the traditional interpretation. Some wills, indeed, are better destroyed.

For the purposes of poetry, drama, and fiction, this theme is obvious but not negligible. There is a remarkable similarity between the atmosphere of Sir Arthur Pinero’s dramas and George Crabbe’s poems. Each, too, has chosen in one instance the criminal destruction of a will to build upon, and while Crabbe’s poem, “The Will,” is slight and Pinero’s drama, “The Thunderbolt,” is subtle, yet poet and dramatist are worth comparing.

In “The Will” a father wishes to disinherit his unworthy son and leave his estate to a worthy friend. The friend dissuades him, but keeps the first will in case the father should revive it.

“The Will in hand, the Father musing stood, Then gravely answered, ‘Your advice is good; Yet take the paper, and in safety keep; I’ll make another will before I sleep, But if I hear of some atrocious deed, That deed I’ll burn, and yours will then succeed. Two thousand I bequeath you. No reproof! And there are small bequests—he’ll have enough; For if he wastes, he would with all be poor, And if he wastes not, he will need no more.’ The Friends then parted: this the Will possess’d, And that another made—so things had rest.”

Until the father died.

“Unhappy Youth! e’er yet the tomb was closed, And dust to dust conveyed in peace reposed, He sought his father’s closet, searched around, To find a will: the important will was found. Well pleased he read, These lands, this manor, all Now call me master! I obey the call! Then from the window looked the valley o’er, And never saw it look so rich before. He viewed the dairy, viewed the men at plough, With other eyes, with other feelings now, And with a new-formed taste found beauty in a cow. The distant swain who drove the plough along Was a good useful slave, and passing strong! In short, the view was pleasing, nay, was fine, ‘Good as my father’s, excellent as mine!’ Again he reads,—but he had read enough; What followed put his virtue to a proof. ‘How this? to David Wright two thousand pounds! A monstrous sum! beyond all reason!—zounds! This is your friendship running out of bounds. Then here are cousins, Susan, Robert, Joe, Five hundred each. Do they deserve it? No! Claim they have none—I wonder if they know What the good man intended to bestow! This might be paid—but Wright’s enormous sum Is—I’m alone—there’s nobody can come— ’Tis all his hand, no lawyer was employed To write this prose, that ought to be destroyed! To no attorney would my father trust: He wished his son to judge of what was just, As if he said, My boy will find the Will, And, as he likes, destroy it or fulfil. This now is reason, this I understand— What was at his, is now at my command. As for this paper, with these cousiny names, I—’tis my Will—commit it to the flames. Hence! disappear! now am I lord alone: They’ll groan, I know, but, curse them, let them groan.’”

Needless to say, Wright inquires for the will, and is told that there is none. After expostulation and discreet delay, the friend is satisfied that the will is destroyed: to the son’s consternation a copy of the first will is produced, and David Wright becomes the lawful heir.

In “The Thunderbolt” the simple theme is drawn out with quiet but subtle skill. An elder brother dies, rich and with one child only, a natural daughter. The family, upon whom nature has showered neither excellence nor wealth, assembles with all the gloom and all the curiosity appropriate to the occasion. It appears that there is no will forthcoming; the daughter therefore will have no share in the estate, the brothers and a sister being entitled between them. But when all is thought to be settled and safe, when each has devised a new scheme and scale of life, a brother breaks in upon the smug conclave announcing that there was a will, but that he had destroyed it. His story breaks down, and the act is traced to his wife who nursed the deceased on his death-bed, accidentally found the will, and after his death deliberately destroyed it. The poor daughter finds that her father has not forgotten her; the selfish family is thunderstruck. Such is the character, and hence the name, of the play.

In Sir Arthur Pinero’s drama no lawsuit follows, all parties agreeing in a compromise. But in real life probate actions are a rich source of intimate dramas and revelations. From them innumerable details emerge: threats and cajolery, rights and wrongs, loves and hates, stand out with all their tender or terrible insistence. In fiction inevitably they find a place. In “Mr. Meeson’s Will” Sir Henry Rider Haggard has discovered an extraordinary theme, but he has not shown the art which made the ordinary theme of “The Thunderbolt” a subtle and telling play. Mr. Meeson is outraged by his nephew’s plain-speaking, which reminds him of his unrighteous dealings, and in a rage cuts him out of his will. The girl on whose behalf the nephew was to be disinherited is, by a strange course of events, thrown with Mr. Meeson on a deserted island, with two sailors and a child only besides. In terror of death, which swiftly overtakes him, Mr. Meeson would revive his former will, but there is nothing with or upon which to write it. The only possible method is to tattoo the dying man’s desires upon human flesh, and this is done by one of the sailors upon the back of the tortured girl. She is rescued by a passing ship; and on returning home a probate action, such as never yet had been, was fought out to a triumphant conclusion.

Another story, scarcely less remarkable in its own way, is revealed by Edmund Gosse, in “Father and Son,” of an action set in motion by a son who was grievously wronged by one of the “saints”—the sect among whom Mr. Gosse’s father held an honourable place. This member of the community had persuaded a rich man, well on in years, to board with him, and when he died a will was produced leaving his entire fortune to the “saint” with whom he lodged. Yet the old man had a son surviving. In time the son came home from overseas, and the universal legatee of the will was arrested. The trial disclosed that the old man had been “converted” by the “saint,” and had disinherited his son as an “unbeliever.” The “saint” had traced the signature to the will by drawing the testator’s fingers over the document, when he was already comatose. To the last the “saint” declared his belief that he had done no wrong, that it was righteous to wrest the money to pious and charitable uses. Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.

FOOTNOTE

[1] The “Dictionary of National Biography” says: “Born December 23, 1621, probably at Sellinge, Kent.”

CHAPTER II
WILLS NOT FULFILLED

“Fallax saepe fides, testataque vota peribunt; Constitues tumulum, si sapis, ipse tuum.” Ancient Epitaph.

It is impossible for a will to be always and in all events binding. If Virgil’s will had been scrupulously observed, his fame would have been grievously curtailed; for the “Æneid” should never have been published. It is said that he gave directions for its burning, and that his executors, Varius and Tucca, received his manuscripts on condition that they published nothing he had not edited himself.

“For Poetry is nothing if not perfect,” and the three years which he was to devote to its polish and perfecting were not granted in his allotted span. But Augustus, and Virgil’s executors, were wiser than he himself, though the touch of the vanished hand could not mould its beauty to perfection. It was unfinished: but only as Turner’s “Canal at Chichester,” or Schubert’s “Symphony,” are unfinished.

There are such occasions: but it is easy to understand with what desire the testator desires his wishes to be fulfilled. His will, he feels, should be inviolable. “Finally,” says George Ludewig Count von der Schulenburg in 1774, “as I hope that this my disposition and last will will be strictly and inviolably observed by my dear children, provided they do not mean to merit my paternal displeasure and the wrath and punishment of the supreme Being, so on the other hand I heartily wish them every fatherly blessing and the grace of the Almighty, and do earnestly recommend them to His omniscient guidance.”

Thomas Rigden, of the County of Kent, shows a lively desire that nothing should be done amiss. “June 24th, 1746. This in the name of God, the Father Son and Holy Ghost. I Thomas Rigden, having a very great desire that my last will and testament may be fulfilled after that I am dead, for the good of my wife and children, have taken upon me to write these few lines. Now this is my desire as follows. Now with my free will do I give all that I have or all that I shall leave ... to my wife Alice Rigden, for her use and for the use of bringing up my children. And my desire is by all means that my children may all agree and live in love one with another, which I pray God grant they may all do. So fare you all well, my dear wife and my dear children. This is my last will, and I hope you will fulfil it.”

Times without number the most insistent thought of mortal man must be, whether his wife and children will be kindly treated when he is gone. How can a parent endure the thought of such scorn and suffering as a Jane Eyre is forced to undergo? “As I remember, Adam,” says Orlando in the opening of “As You Like It,” “it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but a poor thousand crowns; and, as thou say’st, charged my brother on his blessing to breed me well: and there begins my sadness.” Hinc illae lacrimae. There indeed begins the sadness, it may be feared, of many outside fiction and the drama, in spite of prayer or threat.

Elenor Clarke ([Cp. p. 52]), widow of Bartholomew Clarke, of Clapham, whose will was proved in 1594, gave the custody of her son Francis to her brother John Haselrigge, “charging my said brother as he will answer before the Tribunal seat of God to deal honestly and faithfully with him and by him.” But how he fared we do not know. “And I charge you Ed. Lascelles my sole executor before God to be punctual,” says Robert Knox, for twenty years a captive in Ceylon, “in performing all this that I have given, lest the cries of the widow and fatherless come up to heaven against you, and your lot be a curse instead of a blessing” (1711: died 1720).

Bishops and kings of old were next to none in the vigour of their language. Theodred, Bishop of London in Edgar’s reign, is aggressively violent: “And whosoever takes from my testament, may God take him from the Kingdom of Heaven, unless he amend it before his death.” In the same spirit, if with less directness, Henry VI. requires the fulfilment of his will: “And that this my said will in every point before rehearsed may the more effectually be executed ... I ... not only pray and desire, but also exhort in Christ require and charge, all and every of my said feoffees, my executors and surveyor or surveyors, in virtue of the aspersion of Christ’s blessed blood and of His painful passion that they having God and mine intention before their eyes, not letting for dread or favour of any person living of what estate degree or condition that he be, truly faithfully and diligently execute my same will and every part thereof, as they will answer before the blessed and dreadful visage of our Lord Jesu in His most fearful and last doom, when every man shall most strictly be examined and deemed after his demerits. And, furthermore, for the more sure accomplishment of this my said will, I in the most entire and most fervent wise pray my said heirs and successors and every one of them, that they show themselves well willing faithful and tender lovers of my desire in this behalf; and in the bowels of Christ our altogether just and strict judge exhort them to remember the terrible comminations and full fearful imprecations of Holy Scripture against the breakers of the law of God, and the letters of good and holy works.”

If Bishops and Kings must write with such vehemence, how shall the humble citizen fare? The possibility of the deceased’s wishes being neglected or overridden was so real that old writers advise the charitable to exercise their charity in their lifetime, and not to trust to executors or friends. Their faithlessness had even passed into a proverb: “three executors make three thieves.” Thus John Stow, in his “Survey of London,” remarks how often wills were proved but not performed: “Thus much for famous citizens have I noted their charitable actions, for the most part done by them in their lifetime. The residue left in trust to their executors. I have known some of them hardly (or never) performed, wherefore I wish men to make their own hands their executors, and their eyes their overseers, not forgetting the old proverb:

“Women be forgetful, children be unkind, Executors be covetous, and take what they find. If any body ask where the dead’s goods became, They answer, So God help me and holydom, he died a poor man.”

Jeremy Taylor, in “The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying,” has the same thought and the same proverb in his mind: “He that gives with his own hand shall be sure to find it; but he that trusts executors with his charity, and the economy and issues of his virtue, by which he must enter into his hopes of heaven and pardon, shall find but an ill account when his executors complain he died poor: ‘think on this.’”

This interesting proverb was written upon a wall in St. Edmund’s Church, Lombard Street, and is thus quoted in Weever’s “Funeral Monuments”:—

“Man, the behoveth oft to have this in mind, That thow geveth wyth thin hond, that sall thow fynd. For widowes be sloful, and chyldren beth unkynd, Executors beth covetos, and kep al that they fynd. If eny body ask wher the deddys goodys becam, They answer, So God help me and Halidam, he died a poor man. think onthis.”

Other proverbial lines are quoted by Thomas Fuller, and a fresh turn is given to the thought, in his “Cambridge History.” “It is the life of a gift, to be done in the life of the giver; far better than funeral legacies, which, like Benjamin, are born by the loss of a parent. For, it is not so kindly charity, for men to give what they can keep no longer: besides, such donations are most subject to abuses.

“Silver in the living Is gold in the giving; Gold in the dying Is but silver a-flying; Gold and silver in the dead Turn too often into lead.”

It is pitiable to think how many elaborate and kindly dispositions never bore fruit, and legitimate to believe that executors are more honest now. But, in spite of failures, English life and customs are largely bound up with bequests. Innumerable gifts meant for perpetuity never took effect or have passed into oblivion; but a goodly number remains, to which year by year additions are made. Picturesque survivals may often be traced to some will, no less than studentships or professors’ chairs, almshouses or doles, institutions or the treasures that adorn them. Such a record as Johnson’s “Annuities to the Blind” suggests how much one class owes to beneficent testators.

For nearly two hundred years a quaint custom has marked February 2nd at Wotton, in Surrey, in pursuance of the will of William Glanvill. Boys of twelve to sixteen stand bareheaded round the testator’s tomb, recite the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Apostles’ Creed, read the 15th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and write down two verses therefrom. After these tests five boys are selected, and receive 40s. apiece. As an instance of a school founded by a will, John Neville, Lord Latimer (1542), may be quoted. “After my decease the Master and Vicar (of Well, in Yorkshire) shall take all the rents of the parsonage of Saint George Church in York, for the term of forty years, and therewith to find a schoolmaster at Well for keeping a school and teaching of grammar there, and to pray for me and them that I am most bounden to pray for.” The school exists, but does the master pray for the worthy founder still?

There are various reasons why wills should sometimes not be fulfilled. The estate, for instance, may not be adequate. It is strange how vague are the ideas of some testators in this respect, and one recalls what Dr. Johnson said of a certain bequest to erect a hospital for “ancient maids” that the word maintain should be expunged and starve inserted, so insufficient were the funds. It is amusing (to the outsider) when legacies are given with effusive expressions of admiration or gratitude, while all the time there is no money to pay them.

Some admit frankly that they have no material blessings to bestow. Thomas Johnson, otherwise John Plummer (proved January 22, 1780), left everything to his “dearly beloved and most deservedly esteemed ever loving affectionate friend Ann Watson ... being thoroughly sure she will take good care of the dear boy, J. H. Plummer, to whom unfortunately I have nothing to leave but the wide world to seek his fortune, excepting my prayers for his success.” Queen Elizabeth Woodville, in her will dated April 10, 1492—a death-bed will—pathetically says: “Whereas I have no worldly goods to do the Queen’s Grace, my dearest daughter, a pleasure with, neither to reward any of my children, according to my heart and mind, I beseech Almighty God to bless her Grace, with all her noble issue; and with as good heart and mind as is to me possible, I give her Grace my blessing, and all the aforesaid my children.” Maeonides nullas ipse reliquit opes. Even Homer died penniless.

Another cause of non-fulfilment may be a legal barrier. There is no legal method of enforcing a testator’s wishes for the disposal of his body, except for anatomical purposes. The bequest is void if money be given to expend the interest in keeping up a grave. In England there is a legal obstacle against a bequest for the celebration of masses for the repose of the soul: it is termed a “superstitious trust” and is invalid. The famous decision in 1835 in the case of West v. Shuttleworth has not been superseded. The Master of the Rolls, Sir Charles Pepys, afterwards Lord Cottenham, held that in this country gifts to priests “that I may have the benefit of their prayers and masses,” or “for the benefit of the prayers for the repose of my soul, and that of my deceased husband,” were void, and void such bequests remain.

Personal reasons, lastly, may bring about the breaking of a will. Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey’s recommendations for his funeral have been quoted: he desired to be buried in the meanest place, without pomp or pageantry, without numerous attendants either of friends or relations, very early in the morning or very late at night, as privately as possible, without sermon or harangue. But the excitement and notoriety of his end, the passions that it aroused or signified, could not suffer him so to depart. His death and funeral are part of the history of his time. On October 12, 1678, he disappeared: on the 17th he was found dead in a ditch on the southern side of Primrose Hill. The funeral was postponed till the 31st, when his body was borne to Old Bridewell, and publicly lay in state. A solemn procession accompanied it through Fleet Street and the Strand to St. Martin’s Church, where it was buried and a sermon preached by the vicar, William Lloyd. Thus was his will wholly set at nought—a remarkable but perhaps a pardonable violation.

CHAPTER III
DR. JOHNSON’S WILL

“My readers,” writes Boswell, “are now, at last, to behold Samuel Johnson preparing himself for that doom from which the most exalted powers afford no exemption to man.” There can be few sights more fascinating. In the case of Johnson there is an especial fascination, since for many years he felt, and at times expressed, fear and horror of death in a degree to which most men are strangers. He said “he never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him.” But toward the end this horror abated, so that there is a peculiar beauty in the opening of his will, which he made but five days before his death. “In the name of God, Amen. I, Samuel Johnson, being in full possession of my faculties, but fearing this night may put an end to my life, do ordain this my last will and testament. I bequeath to God a soul polluted with many sins, but I hope purified by repentance and I trust redeemed by Jesus Christ.”

He calmly anticipates the acceleration with which he advances towards death. But, now as formerly, he will not dogmatise on his salvation; he “hopes” and “trusts.” “A man may have such a degree of hope as to keep him quiet,” he had observed on one occasion; but on another, “No man can be sure that his obedience and repentance will obtain salvation.” He might have prayed, as did Sir Francis South in his will dated November 14, 1631, “beseeching Him for the all-sufficient merits and infinite mercies of His only Son and my alone Saviour Christ Jesus to accept of this my poor sacrifice, and freely to pardon and forgive me my many multiplied sins and transgressions, and in the love of His most blessed Spirit to give me some comfortable assurance thereof during my time in this vale of flesh, that I may joyfully and willingly part with this miserable world to live with Him for ever in His eternal rest.”

It was this “comfortable assurance” that Johnson needed. To the last he seems logically to have maintained the distinction between hope and belief, but emotionally to have discarded it. Certainly at the end he was resigned.

But Johnson could not comfort himself with the idea, prevalent in his century, of the infinite goodness of God. He dismissed it as inapplicable to his case, a few months before his death, in a conversation with Dr. Adams. “‘As I cannot be sure that I have fulfilled the conditions on which salvation is granted, I am afraid I may be one of those who shall be damned’ (looking dismally).” But it is made a frequent ground of hope (for want of a better) in wills of the time. John Murton, in a will proved the year of Johnson’s death, thus begins: “In the Name of God, Amen. I, John Murton, of Milton next Sittingbourne in the County of Kent, grocer, being advanced in years and in an indifferent state of health, but of sound and perfect mind memory and understanding, (praised be Almighty God for the same,) and considering the uncertain continuance of this mortal life, and the many hazards and dangers that we frail beings are daily liable and incident unto, do make publish and declare this my last will and testament in manner and form following, (that is to say:) First and principally of all I commend my soul into the hands of Almighty God who gave it, in all humble hopes and with a firm assurance of its future happiness as in the disposal of a Being infinitely good.” Forty years previously Pope employed the same sentiment and almost the same phrase: “I Alexander Pope, of Twickenham in the County of Middlesex, make this my last will and testament. I resign my soul to its Creator in all humble hope of its future happiness as in the disposal of a Being infinitely good.”

Boswell mars the rhythm of Johnson’s formal act of faith, and the depths of meaning it conveys (to those who remember Johnson’s delicate apprehension of Christian terms), by writing “but I hope purified by Jesus Christ” in place of the fuller form “but I hope purified by repentance and I trust redeemed by Jesus Christ.” A namesake, the Rev. Samuel Johnson, whose will is dated November 8, 1777, and was proved on June 3, 1784, has a similar clause in words that strongly recall the theological arguments and vocabulary of the Doctor. “My soul I commit and commend altogether to the mercy of God in Christ Jesus trusting through His merits and powerful mediation to be saved from that eternal punishment whereof I am deserving on account of my sins, and to inherit all that eternal life promised in the Gospel to all them that obey Him: even so, Lord Jesus.”

It is true that such expressions are still frequent in wills of the latter half of the eighteenth century, and to some extent formal; but they are not so much a matter of course as in earlier days, and therefore all the more worth attention. “A few years ago,” wrote Sir John Hawkins in his Life of Dr. Johnson, “it was the uniform practice to begin wills with the words ‘In the Name of God, Amen,’ and frequently to insert therein a declaration of the testator’s hope of pardon in the merits of his Saviour; but in these more refined times such forms are deemed superfluous.” The will of Lucy Porter, Johnson’s step-daughter, is devoid of such pious expressions; indeed, wholly unsentimental save for a desire to be buried “under or near the tombstone of Catherine Chambers,” and a request that the funeral “may be performed in the afternoon before sun-setting.” The will of Anna Williams, who was for twenty years as a sister to Dr. Johnson, and died the year before he died, is also devoid of piety, save for the conventional preface “In the Name of God, Amen.” Even of many divines and doctors of divinity the same may be said: they plunge in medias res, without any ascription of praise or uplifting of the heart to God.

The Rev. Samuel Johnson appears to have made his will betimes. But of Dr. Johnson Boswell has to say: “It is strange to think that Johnson was not free from that general weakness of being averse to execute a will, so that he delayed it from time to time; and had it not been for Sir John Hawkins repeatedly urging it, I think it is probable that his kind resolution (to provide for Francis Barber) would not have been fulfilled.” But Sir John was not satisfied with the Doctor’s will when made. The deficiencies that he detected therein he attributed to its late execution. We may, however, leave Boswell and others to settle this controversy.

Yet it is strange that any should jeopardise the fortunes of others, and frustrate his own desires, by tarrying to set his house in order: it can be explained only by neglect or superstition. Dr. Johnson did not take to heart his lines in “London”:—

“Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, And sign your will before you sup from home.”

He may have put it off from sheer indolence, but it is not unlikely he felt something of the common superstition against making a will, unreasonable though it may be and unwise. When Charles Lamb wished to make his first will he wrote: “I want to make my will, and to leave my property in trust for my sister. N.B. I am not going therefore to die.” But Lamb had not Johnson’s peculiar dread of death. The superstition is not yet defunct; its rise and origin would be difficult to trace. “It is received,” says a writer in the sixteenth century, “for an opinion amongst the ruder and more ignorant people, that if a man should chance to be so wise as to make his will in his good health when ... he might ask counsel of the learned, that then surely he should not live long after.”

It is curious that it should sometimes be a case for jocularity if a man make his will betimes. Possibly this light-heartedness is assumed as a cloak to hide from ourselves the gravity of our inevitable end. If this be so, it is not surprising to find Dr. Johnson convulsed with hilarity when his friend Langton made his will. But the story is an extraordinary one. “He now laughed immoderately, without any reason that we could perceive,” says Boswell, “ ... called him the testator; and added, ‘I dare say he thinks he has done a mighty thing. He won’t stay till he gets home to his seat in the country, to produce this wonderful deed: he’ll call up the landlord of the first inn on the road; and, after a suitable preface upon mortality and the uncertainty of life, will tell him he should not delay making his will.... He believes he has made this will; but he did not make it; you, Chambers, made it for him. I trust you have had more conscience than to make him say, ‘being of sound understanding’; ‘ha, ha, ha! I hope he has left me a legacy. I’d have his will turned into verse, like a ballad.’ ... Johnson could not stop his merriment, but continued it all the way till he got without the Temple-gate. He then burst into such a fit of laughter, that he appeared to be almost in a convulsion; and, in order to support himself, laid hold of one of the posts at the side of the foot pavement, and sent forth peals so loud, that in the silence of the night his voice seemed to resound from Temple-bar to Fleet-ditch.”

In spite of Dr. Johnson’s amusement, the early making of a will has long been of grave concern to moralists. As Donne in one of his sermons says, the execution of a will at the last may be a heavy business, but the addition of a codicil, if necessary, may be easily dispatched. But in wills themselves the most elaborate language is employed to force home this precept. The will of Dame Jane Talbot, dated in the 20th year of Henry VII., thus begins: “I Dame Jane Talbot, widow late the wife of Sir Humphrey Talbot knight, calling to remembrance that the gracious passage and departing from this transitory life dependeth and ensueth upon a discrete will made by good deliberation in good and virtuous order; and that I and all other Christian people be mortal and must depart from the wretched uncertain and unstable life, the hour and time of which departing from the same unstable life is uncertain; and also that I and any other mortal person, be apt by the sending and visitation of God to receive and take such infirmities and sickness whereby I might, in or immediately before the article or pain of death, lack or fail sure and perfect mind and reason to order and make my last will and testament according to the meritorious and wholesome intent to the will of my soul: wherefore I the said Dame Jane Talbot, being of perfect health, whole mind and good memory, to the honour of God and health of my said soul ordain and make this my testament and last will in manner and form following; that is to say, First I bequeath and give my soul unto my Lord God, Father of Heaven, which of His inestimable and infinite mercy and goodness hath made it assemblable to His own image, and of His infinite mercy with His precious blood hath redeemed it, and to His blessed Mother the Virgin Saint Mary and also to the charitable tuition and keeping of all the saints in Heaven.”

Johnson had not wife or children of his own to provide for, but he had many friends. As already hinted, some of these he offended by the omission of their names. For this reason also he displeased Lucy Porter. Boswell (himself omitted) says that she should have considered that she had left nothing to Johnson, though her will was made in his lifetime. But it is fair to remark that she mentions few names in all, and that her will was not executed until September in the year of Johnson’s death.

Thus even so simple a document as Johnson’s will occasioned searchings of heart, a result that some strive heroically or pathetically to avoid. “I again desire that all things may be composed with peace honour and honesty,” wrote Dorothy Eve, of Canterbury, in 1691. A merchant, James Clegg, whose will was proved the same year as Johnson’s, declared that he made his testament “to explain my last will for the distribution of what shall result to be my property and to me belonging at the time of my decease, in such manner that I hope not to embroil those persons who will have the pleasure of surviving me.” Wills that stir the passions and sting the memory are indeed of frequent occurrence. Wills that satisfy every friend must surely be few.

To what an extent the remembrance of friends may be carried is illustrated by a will made a few years after Johnson’s death. While Johnson bequeathed books to less than a score of friends, Martha Shorte, in a list which must long have engaged her thoughts, bequeaths mementoes to more than a hundred beneficiaries. “The small trifle,” she says in one place, “is only to denote that all my kind neighbours lived in my memory.” In some cases it may be surmised, or at least the suspicion will cross the mind, that her friends were not unaware of her testamentary tendencies. To one, for instance, she gives “two mahogany stools that she used to like,” to another, “an old inlaid Chinese cabinet that she always admired,” to another the “yew-tree card-table which she admired.” But there is a danger in lavish remembrance: for if one be omitted where many are comprised, the sting is so much the more sharp.

Johnson left the residue of his estate to his negro servant, Francis Barber. Even this raised dissent. Sir John Hawkins, says Boswell, seemed not a little angry at this bequest, and muttered a caveat against ostentatious bounty to negroes. Barber had once been a slave, but had received the gift of liberty under his master’s will. The latter years of his liberty Johnson hoped to provide for.

Simpson Strachan, the merchant whose will was buried for fear of the enemy, may illustrate the case of Barber. “My will and my intention is that my negro man ... in virtue of his faithful services be made free of all slavery whatever, and I do hereby order and ordain and request my executors to pay all the expenses attending his freedom from my estate, and that they give him the sum of £330 currency to his own use and behoof as a reward for his fidelity and attachment to me.” Most would agree with Boswell that a faithful servant, in lieu of near relations, is peculiarly entitled to enjoy

“A little gold that’s sure each week, That comes not from his living kind, But from a dead man in his grave, Who cannot change his mind.”

Nor was it his master’s fault if Barber made so ill a use of his money as Hawkins affirms.

Provision for old servants is still a frequent, even an outstanding, feature of wills, accompanied often by graceful expressions of gratitude. Perhaps it has always been so. The Rt. Hon. Humphry Morice, of the Privy Council, was writing a codicil by way of instruction to his executors, shortly before the year of Johnson’s death. He makes us feel vividly what Johnson must have owed to his faithful servant: “My diamond shoe and knee buckles I mean to include in my wearing apparel left to Richard Deale, also gold-headed canes, as his attention and fidelity increases every day, and sorry I am to say he is the only servant I ever had who seemed sensible of good treatment and did not behave ungratefully.”

To the ordinary reader Dr. Johnson’s other bequests appear thoughtful too, though Hawkins considered them ill-proportioned and ill-calculated. To the Rev. Mr. Rogers, of Berkeley, near Frome, he gave £100, “requesting him to apply the same towards the maintenance of Elizabeth Herne, a lunatick”; to his god-children, “the son and daughter of Mauritius Lowe, painter, each of them £100 of my stock in the 3 per cent. consolidated annuities, to be applied and disposed of by and at the discretion of my executors, in the education or settlement in the world of them my said legatees”; and to “Mr. Sastres, the Italian master, the sum of £5, to be laid out in books of piety for his own use.” But uppermost in his mind, it would seem, was the debt of gratitude he owed, for his father’s sake, to Innys the bookseller; for him he remembered in his will made in the immediate apprehension of death, while most of his bequests occurred in the codicil executed on the following day.

One of the strangest characteristics of man is that, in the face of death, he can without a qualm speak bitter words and cherish hard feelings, a characteristic which sometimes distinguishes or disfigures wills. Dr. Johnson’s will is free from any such taint. Yet he retained a certain roughness of language to the last. “Treat thy nurses and servants sweetly, and as it becomes an obliged and a necessitous person,” says Jeremy Taylor. Boswell speaks of Johnson’s “uncommon kindness to his servants.” But, asked one morning how he liked a new attendant who had sat up with him, Johnson replied with a touch of his old humorous self: “Not at all, Sir; the fellow’s an idiot; he is as awkward as a turnspit when first put into the wheel, and as sleepy as a dormouse.”

When Burke heard how Langton could convict the Doctor of nothing worse than a roughness of speech or manner, he said: “It is well if, when a man comes to die, he has nothing heavier upon his conscience than having been a little rough in conversation.” It does seem that Johnson was not unworthy of some such eulogium in spite of certain charges raised against him, and in spite of his fear of death. It is grateful to consider that Johnson’s words may be applicable to himself: “The better a man is, the more afraid he is of death, having a clearer view of infinite purity.” Boswell says that the word polluted in Johnson’s will may to some convey an impression of more than ordinary contamination, but mentions that the same word is used in the will of Dr. Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, who was purity itself. A man would indeed be ignorant of human nature, not to mention the phraseology of wills, if he were to attach importance to the words polluted with many sins; he would indeed be blind to the “view of infinite purity.” It may be of interest therefore to compare the will of Dr. Sanderson with Dr. Johnson’s in this respect. “First, I commend my soul into the hands of Almighty God, as of a faithful Creator, which I humbly beseech Him mercifully to accept, looking upon it, not as it is in itself—infinitely polluted with sin—but as it is redeemed and purged with the precious blood of His only beloved Son, and my most sweet Saviour Jesus Christ.”

When John Selden died, his barber had a mind to see his will: “For,” said he, “I never knew a wise man make a wise will.” The will of Dr. Johnson, that great and good, wise and humorous, figure, may be read in Boswell or Hawkins, in the Gentleman’s Magazine, or at Somerset House. It leaves a savour wholly sweet, and is in every item dignified.

CHAPTER IV
DEATH-BED DISPOSITIONS

“Because mention is made of Death in men’s wills and testaments, I warrant you there is none will set his hand to them, till the physician hath given his last doom, and utterly forsaken him.”—Montaigne.

Among the wills of Kentish folk there is one of a John Crampe, who lived in the parish of St. Peter the Apostle, Isle of Thanet, by calling a husbandman. He was one of those whose last hours are troubled by the “heavy business” of a death-bed disposition. We read that “on or about the 3rd day of September, 1727, the said John Crampe, now deceased, being then sick in bed, did give directions or instructions to him the deponent, George Witherden, ... for the making of the last will and testament of him the said deceased.... And the said deceased then attempted to sign the said will, but was so weak that he could not guide the pen, and so died without signing the same.”

Or again. On the 27th of January, 1717, there appeared Margaret Preston and Ellis Kyffin to depose that they “being together at the lodgings of Mrs. Priscilla Blake, widow, in Crown Court, in the parish of St. James’s, ... who then lay very ill, severally saw her the said Priscilla Blake, who was then of sound mind memory and understanding and well knew what she did, execute her last will and testament; ... which will had, as they believe, been drawn up the day before by her directions, and but just then read over to her; for the deponent, Ellis Kyffin, asking her if she was satisfied with it all the time she was going to make her mark to the same, the testatrix answered she was. With that the deponent said, ‘God strengthen your hand,’ to which she again replied, ‘Amen,’ and then made her mark to the said will as now appears, and took a seal from the wax dropped near the same, and said that that was her will: in testimony whereof this deponent Ellis Kyffin subscribed her name as a witness thereto, but the deponent Preston, not being able to write her name, was the reason that her name was not put as a witness thereto.”

Of such cases the following, too, is picturesque and significant. The affidavit accompanying the curt and curious will of Henry Harding, a Staffordshire worthy, explains its formality, and reveals a touching death-bed scene in the early morning of Easter Sunday, 1761. It begins without preamble. “Mr. Harding gives to his two nephews Henry and William, and his niece Mary Harding, the sum of £100 apiece.” He proceeds to give “to his dear cousin Abramaria Harris his work chair bottoms and his best hangings of his best bed; ... to his servant John Johnson all his clothes (except his silk stockings).” He desires his executors to take care of his servant George Clarke during his life. The residue of his estate, subject to a few other bequests, he leaves to his brother.

This will is sworn to by one Samuel Wilcock and by Abramaria Harris. It was made at two o’clock on that Easter morning. The testator, feeling the approach of death, sent for the said Samuel Wilcock, of Abbots Bromley. About 1 a.m., it would seem, he arrived, and to him Mr. Harding gave instructions to draw up his will in writing. Mr. Wilcock accordingly wrote down the instructions of the dying man, and then prepared to write out the will in more formal and regular style. But before the draft could be completed, about four o’clock the same morning, Henry Harding passed away. Truly a strange hour and a strange time to make a will, and a harassing task for a man’s last moments on earth. But to his negligence or superstition we owe this picture of an Easter morning, a hundred and fifty years ago.

From the will of William the Conqueror, which was set down at his death-bed, to that of an entombed miner, recently, who wrote: “May the Holy Virgin have mercy on me. I am writing in the dark, because we have eaten all our wax matches. You have been a good wife. All my property belongs to you,” such incidents have always been occurring, and, it may be imagined, always will occur. The Probate Court reveals them now and then. Recently a testator, suffering from pneumonia, and near the point of death, about 3.30 in the afternoon, dictated to his doctors his testamentary dispositions. The document was written in pencil, and the dying man made his mark thereto, which was duly witnessed. A copy was then made in ink, but certain words were omitted, and, owing to the sudden necessity of administering oxygen, not finally inserted. This second document was executed by the testator, but, one of the witnesses not seeing him make his mark, it could not be admitted to probate. About 5.30 the testator died. On application to the court, probate was granted of the pencil will.

In these cases there is something extremely distressing. When a man’s thoughts should be composed, as far as possible, in the consideration of his final end and on the prospects of another world, he is tied to earth by his efforts to settle his temporal affairs. It is no wonder that moralists and theologians have insisted on the necessity of making a will betimes: the wonder is that any should be found to neglect their admonitions, or be surprised by sickness and sudden death. “They are so fearful to die that they dare not look upon it as possible, and think that the making of a will is a mortal sign, and sending for a spiritual man an irrecoverable disease; and they are so afraid lest they should think and believe now they must die, that they will not take care that it may not be evil in case they should.” Maurice Barrowe, whose will was proved in 1666, may have read Jeremy Taylor’s “Holy Dying”; certainly his sentiments would have found favour with the great divine. “In the Name of God Amen. I Maurice Barrowe, of Barningham, in the County of Suffolk, Esquire, duly weighing the mutable condition of this life and certainty of death manifested by daily examples, to prevent cares of the world at that time, (those distracting interrupters of a dislodging soul,) now in my perfect health and entire memory, to the glory of God, quiet of my mind, designing of my heirs, satisfaction of my debts, remembrance of my friends and recompense of my servants, do make and ordain this my last will and testament.”

Pathetic, indeed, death-bed wills too often are. Here is the cry of a humble inhabitant of Kent in 1608. “Loving father, my humble duty remembered unto you. It hath pleased God to visit me with sickness, so as I think not to see you any more in this world: wherefore I pray you to be good to my wife and children.” Or take another more than a hundred years later. “Queenborough, May 12th, 1721. Brother John Smith, I am very bad, so bad that I cannot tell whether I shall live or die. So in case of death I desire you to be executor to take care of the things and the girl. I cannot write, but this shall stand in as full force as if in any other form drawn.”

More explicit, indeed of a painful preciseness, are the last words of Denham Castle, who died of smallpox in 1709. “Sir, I am very much obliged to you for enquiring after me in so particular a manner. My circumstances are very bad, and smallpox come out as thick as they can. I have not had a wink of sleep, and am choked almost with the phlegm. If some method is not taken to rid me of the phlegm and give me some speedy relief, I shall not be able to hold out. I would desire the favour to acquaint my father with it, who is at Sheperton beyond Hampton Town in Middlesex, but I would not have him or any of my sisters come near me, for it will be of no use to me. If I should do otherwise than well, I have some money in a box in my study, the only box there: it is under lock and key. Some part of it which is gold is put up within the lids of my pocket-book, which will be found wrapped up in some linen. There are also [some other sums]: that money will bury me privately; and if there is any remaining, I desire my youngest sister and Nanny who is a prentice in London may have it, as being the worst provided for.”

Well worth comparing with the last is the will of Thomas Dixon, “late of the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields.”

“London.
“June the 28th, 1718.

“My dear Life,—This is to let you understand my to help myself in any respect, or move either hand or foot, no more than had I been quite dead, being seized all over my body with the dead palsy, and now lying in St. Thomas’ Hospital in Southwark; and for my comfort they tell me I shall never be cured. My Dear, there would be nothing more pleasing, or a greater satisfaction to me, than to see you here by me before I part with this life, which I do not doubt but you will consider as soon as this comes to your hands. Pray, my Dear, I desire you may make my sister a present of three pounds: you know what you are to have when you come here, not that I think it too much for you but wishes it were more for your sake. Likewise, my Dear, be pleased to give my coat, waistcoat and two pair of breeches to my father, my silver buckles to my uncle Garrott, and the razors belong to my master: as for all the rest, you may do as you think convenient, but this I desire you’ll fulfil; and likewise give one of my shirts to my cousin John Monachon, and a pair of shoes: my sister will tell you who he is.

“My duty to my dear father and mother, and I earnestly crave their blessing, and the prayers of my brother and sisters and all friends, and my love to them all, and the blessing of God be with them. I desire you may let my sister see this as soon as it comes to your hands, and to hasten your coming as soon as possible you can get ready; for to delay any time, and knowing my condition, you may perhaps not overtake me alive; for if I got England, I cannot put a bit of anything to my mouth, but as I am fed by others. This is all, my Dear, I can say, but I begs you will fulfil all that I desire in this, which is the earnest request of him who is, (without the miraculous assistance of my good God and Saviour,) on his death-bed.—Your constant and loving husband till that hour, Thomas Dixon.”

The veil is lifted from the last days of a dying man, but lifted for the moment only. Did the letter reach his wife in time? Did she hasten and reach him alive? We may hope she did, for Thomas Dixon lingered until the 8th of July; but thus wills constantly tantalise us, while they leave the more to the imagination.

In 1603 the plague, which was to mark the century with its devastations, carried off in London over 41,000 souls. Nor did the neighbouring villages escape. As witnessed by the parish register, the Rector of Clapham, with his family, fell a prey. Within one month there died:—

In view of this list the Rector’s will, signed the day before he died in the presence of his maid, Susan Bennet, “and of one old Joane his keeper,” has an added pathos. “Brother Gabriel Coochman, I commend me unto you. I am at the point of death and have no hope ever to see you in this world. My will is that you shall have all my goods and chattels for the use of my wife and children. And I do hereby make you my sole executor for the use aforesaid, and do earnestly pray and desire you to have a fatherly care for the bringing up of my poor children, as my trust is in you. And so I bid you heartily farewell, till we meet in heaven; this second of September, 1603, your loving brother.”

The death of Susan, the maid, is recorded, though as she died last of all we need not ascribe it to her witnessing the will. But probably such a kindly act often cost a man his life. Possibly the parson himself contracted the illness thus, or at least in visiting some afflicted parishioner. For it is noticeable that of the family he was the first to die. We can go back to July, 1515, for such an act of devotion by the parish priest, when the will of one Gefferey Salesbury, of Leicestershire, was witnessed by the priest only, “and no more for fear of the plague of pest.”

To the difficulty of obtaining witnesses was added the unwillingness of scriveners to attend. “Memorandum that upon Wednesday, the 9th day of November, 1625, Edward Blackerby, citizen and clothworker of London, and of the parish of St. Stephen in Coleman Street, in London, being sick in body and in danger of death, but of perfect mind and memory, being desirous to make his last will, sent divers times for a scrivener of his acquaintance to write the same, and in the meantime, in the presence of John Frank and William Blackerby, did very oftentimes pronounce and say that he made his wife his executrix. At the length, perceiving that the scrivener of his acquaintance which he so often sent for was fearful to come unto him in his sickness, he thereupon caused another scrivener to be sent for to write his will; but before his will could be written, his memory was so decayed and so weak that he could not finish what he intended.” Similarly Henry Ludlowe, “late of the parish of St. Martin’s in the Fields, ... goldsmith, being sensible of the hand of God upon him during the late contagion, his family being visited and himself dangerously ill of the sickness whereof he died, and having a desire to declare his will and mind, ... no scrivener being then to be had to put his will into writing, upon a Monday happening about the middle of August last past (1665) ... did cause one of his nurse keepers to call up the others into his chamber on purpose to be witnesses to what he had to say.”

With the intimate and pathetic will of Francis Mountstephen we revert to the plague of 1603. It was proved on the 29th of August that year. “I repose trust in you, brother Nicholas, concerning the executorship. Brother Nicholas, since it hath pleased God to visit me with his rod, which I pray God that rod I may take with patience, you writ unto me concerning the suit which I ever well liked; and the cause of my sending to you a Sunday morning was to that end, and to have made straight those things which you requested. For that bond of £50 you speak of I am content you should have it, upon condition that you would see the rest equally bestowed upon the rest; but, if your discretion think it good, let my two younger sisters have somewhat the greater share, for they have the most need withal. Remember my uncle Baldiom because of my promise. And so referring the rest to your discretion, I commit you to the Lord God, (I end,) whom I desire to release me of my pains which I intolerable do bear. From the pesthouse, this two and twentieth of August, 1603. Your loving brother F. M. If it please God that I do die, I owe to Edward Smith 10/-: I pray you pay it for me. F. M. I pray you take 8/-of Elizabeth Price when she cometh to town. Witnesses, Henry Chitham, keeper of the pesthouse, Rose Gibb and Robert Smith.”

CHAPTER V
WILLS BY WORD OF MOUTH

After various bequests, including the interesting one of $100 “unto the redemption of the poor English captives in Constantinople,” the will of James Peckett, merchant, made in Smyrna, May 3, 1634, breaks off suddenly, and we read: “The aforegoing is as much as was delivered by Mr. James Peckett, who afterwards falling weaker in body and his memory decaying, it was propounded unto him whom he should make choice of for to be his executors in trust, whereupon he nominated Mr. Richard Chambers of London, Merchant, and Mr. Lawrence Greene, Consul for the English nation in Smyrna, and afterwards for his overseers, not knowing who to nominate through his weakness there was propounded unto him whether he would accept of Mr. Rainsbrow and Mr. Thomas Moody of London, merchants: unto the which he answered ‘Yea.’”

This will is, therefore, a mingling of the written and unwritten testament. The nuncupative will, the will by word of mouth, was common in former times; but since the stricter methods of the Wills Act, 1837, it has been mainly in abeyance. Attempts are still made from time to time to establish the words of dying men. A recent action in the Court, to legalise some strangely made codicils, reminds us of James Peckett’s acquiescence and of older methods. “Don’t you want to leave something to me?” the testator was asked. He answered, “Yes,” the question was put, “How much?” and a codicil straightway prepared.

The prevalence of such wills, without even the necessity of a written record signed by the testator, must have led to much abuse. But not always were testators so complaisant. Roger Potter, of Mildenhill, Suffolk, a bachelor “in the time of his last sickness (viz.) upon or about the 12th day of November 1664, did make and declare his last will and testament nuncupative as followeth. He being moved to make his will, he answered ‘With all my heart.’ And then, being asked or demanded whom he would make executor, he replied ‘Executrix,’ and named Mall, meaning as was understood by those present Mary Potter, his brother’s grandchild, whom he especially regarded. And then being moved what he would give to any of his friends, he expressed an unwillingness to do any more, saying ‘Why do you urge me?’” So, too, Reginald Greene “on a Sunday, being the fifth day of July a.d. 1635, ... being then very sick but of good and perfect mind and memory, with an intent to make his last will and testament nuncupative spake these words, or the like in effect, as followeth, viz.: He gave all his goods chattels and debts unto his cousin John Greene ... and his son John Greene. Judith Springatt being present did desire that she might be remembered in his will and to have a legacy therein: he replied ‘No, no,’ and said he had been always beholding to his cousin John Greene and that he and his boy, meaning his said son John Greene, should have all that he had.”

How often a dying man may have fallen a prey to the designs of friends or foes one could not hazard a guess: it is remarkable, on the other hand, what powers of resistance a man in his last sickness may show. Two instances have just been given, but still more interesting is the final will of Henry Akerman, a victim of the plague. What perturbation of mind for a dying man to suffer! “Memorandum that at or upon the VIth day of August a.d. 1603, and between five and six of the clock in the afternoon of the same day, or thereabouts, Henry Akerman, of the parish of St. Giles Without Cripplegate, London, being weak in body and visited with the sickness, but of perfect mind and memory, did, with an intent absolutely to revoke all former wills before by him made, make and declare his last will and testament nuncupative in manner and form and by the words following, or the like in effect, viz.: ‘Whereas this day I did unadvisedly make a will in writing by the procurement of some of my friends, and named therein John Dardes and Jarvice Pitt to be my executors, I do now upon better consideration clean revoke that will, for that I distrust and find that I had done my children wrong thereby. And therefore now I make Mary my well beloved wife my executrix. And I give will and bequeath my goods and chattels, and whatsoever else hath pleased God to bless me withal, to be equally divided betwixt my said wife and my children according to the custom of the City of London’: and these or the like words in effect he spake in the hearing of divers credible witnesses.”

The temptation to postpone a will, to refuse to look death in the face, must have been great when a few dying words were valid. To some how hard is the Horatian theme: divitiis potietur heres!

“I’m growing old, and hence ere long shall fare, How I should love to be my only heir,”

a Hebrew epigrammatist makes a miser say. Pope depicts the miser clinging at the last moment to his lands and his cash, only with his latest breath, reluctantly, making some disposition of his goods.

“‘I give and I devise’ (old Euclio said, And sighed), ‘my lands and tenements to Ned.’ ‘Your money, sir?’ ‘My money, sir, what, all? Why,—if I must’—(then wept) ‘I give it Paul.’ ‘The manor, sir?’—‘The manor! hold,’ he cried, ‘Not that,—I cannot part with that’—and died.”

Nuncupative wills are, in fact, often of a vividness as keen as Pope’s example. The friends, interested or otherwise, who gathered round the testator in a moment of peril or in the hour of death, reproduced his words or actions with quaint exactitude. Sometimes it is in times of peril. “Memorandum that James Dixon, late mariner to His Majesty’s ship the Pearl, but in His Majesty’s hired sloop the sloop Jane, bachelor, deceased, did on or about the 22nd of November 1718 in the morning of the said day, he the said James Dixon being in the hole (sic) of the said sloop and then about to engage with a pirate called the Adventure sloop, did in the presence of several credible witnesses utter and declare his last will and testament nuncupative or by word of mouth in the words following, or to that effect: Messmate, being going to engage which God knows whether of us shall live, but if it please God it is my misfortune to die first, I desire that you would take care and demand all my wages prize money and what shall be due to me from this day, and the longest liver of us to take all; meaning and speaking to Evender Mackever who was then his messmate on board the said ship.... And the said sloop Jane about half an hour after engaged their enemy, and in such engagement the said James Dixon received a shot, who immediately died.”

Such is the end of the adventurer’s life. At another time we are present at the death-bed of the village blacksmith. Thus it is deposed of John Silkwood, a blacksmith residing at Chartham, that he “did on Thursday the 17th day of February, 1691 (S.A.), lying very sick in his then dwelling-house in Chartham aforesaid of the sickness whereof he died, being of perfect mind and memory, and having an intent to make his will and dispose of his estate, declare the same by word of mouth in these or the like words following, viz.: taking his wife by the hand, and putting her wedding ring on her finger, said to her, ‘Thus we have lived together in love, and all that I have both within doors and without I give unto you, and make you executrix of my will.’ ...”

Nor did humble folk only thus make or amplify their wills. It is recorded of Sir Giles Dawbeney, Knight, that on March 3, 1444, he wrote his will, but made no disposition of the residue. “Wherefore afterwards, that is to say the XIth day of January, the year of our Lord 1445, at Barington, to the said Sir Giles lying in his sickness, whereof he died soon after the same day, Sir Robert Wilby, priest, his ghostly father, said: ‘Sir, ye have made a testament and bequeathed many things to divers persons, making no mention who should have the residue of your goods that be not bequeathed; will ye vouchsafe to say who shall have it?’ Forthwith the said knight, without any tarrying, said: ‘My wife shall have it.’ This was his last will.”

It is inevitable that we should again turn to times of plague to illustrate the theme. Early in the seventeenth century there died of the plague a certain Thomas Robinson and his wife Joanna, of Uxbridge. The husband was the first to die. “Memorandum that Thomas Robinson, late of Uxbridge in the County of Middlesex, deceased, on Good Friday or thereabouts in the year 1609, being sick of the plague but of perfect mind and memory, did declare his last will and testament nuncupative in manner and form following, viz.: he said unto his wife Joanna Robinson, ‘I give thee all that ever I have, and all is too little for thee’; or the like in effect, and these words he spake in the presence and hearing of his maid Isabel and divers others.”

But that “little” Joanna was not to enjoy for long. “Memorandum that on Sunday, the 7th May, 1609, or thereabouts, Joanna Robinson, late wife of Thomas Robinson, of Uxbridge in the County of Middlesex, deceased, being sick of the plague but of good and perfect memory, did make and declare her last will nuncupative in manner and form following, viz.: She looked out at the window of her house in Uxbridge, and said unto Agnes Gyles (wife of William Gyles) dwelling in Fleet Lane, London, she being then in the street in Uxbridge, this or it in effect, viz.: ‘Here now I give unto you all that I have’; and then threw out her keys unto the said Agnes, and said, ‘Look unto it, it is all thine; saving I give unto Bessie Crippes, my husband’s cousin, half a dozen napkins, a pair of sheets and a table cloth, and to her father I give my husband’s best suit of apparel, and to my husband’s sister I give my gown a hat and a smock, and to my maid Isabel I give my frifado petticoat and some of my work-a-day clothes besides.’ Then being put in the said street and hearing the premises William Day, and Elizabeth Day his wife, John Kirton, Julian Tanner, and many others.”

These wills, spoken by those stricken with the plague and in many cases carefully recorded, show that the poor creatures were not always deserted in their sickness. Writers make much of the many devices to escape contagion, but Nicholas Holmes actually did not hesitate to take a legatee by the hand. “Memorandum that Nicholas Holmes, late of the parish of St. Dunstan’s in the West, Gent., upon the third day of October in Anno Domini 1636, being taken sick of his last sickness whereof he died, being in perfect mind and memory, did publish and declare his last will and testament nuncupative in manner and form following, viz.: he said that he was suddenly taken so sick that he thought he should die of the sickness, and thereupon he took Mary Willowe, the daughter of John Willowe of the said parish, clockmaker, by the hand and said, ‘Mary, if I die I do give thee an hundred pounds’: and he further said that he did not know how his landlord might be prejudiced by his death, in case he should die of the sickness in his house; therefore he said that, if he died of the sickness, he would give him threescore pieces.”

A landlord who did not turn away one who was sick of the sickness might merit gratitude, as surely would masters who did not dismiss their servants. There was no Insurance Act in those days. “The case of poor servants was very dismal,” says Defoe of the plague in 1665, and doubtless it was so at every visitation. Servants, it is said, were the chief frequenters of astrologers and quacks, who hung out their signs in almost every street. “Oh! Sir,” they would ask, “for the Lord’s sake, what will become of me? Will my master, or mistress, keep me, or turn me off? Will they stay here or go into the country? Will they take me with them, or leave me here to be starved and undone?” Poor William Aspinall was one of the unfortunates. “Memo. that at or upon the 17th day of July, 1603, or thereabouts, William Aspinall late servant unto Richard Leaver of the parish of Allhallows, Barking, in London, being visited with the sickness, but of perfect mind and memory, made and declared his last will and testament nuncupative in manner and form, or to the like effect here following, viz.: he bequeathed his soul to God, and his body to the earth. And as concerning his master Richard Leaver before mentioned, he said he had done him the best service he could, and had dwelt with him a long time, and had served him truly and honestly to the uttermost of his power; and in requital thereof his said master had dealt very unkindly with him, and in the time of his first sickness did forbid him his house and bid him seek lodging elsewhere, and by no means would in that his first time of need suffer him to lodge within his doors, which he took very unkindly.” It is only fair to mention that, on the Friday following, he relented to the extent of giving to his master and mistress each a pair of gloves, to be bought at ten shillings the pair.

The will of a sailor about to engage a pirate has been quoted, and perhaps among sailors the nuncupative will was most prevalent. Often we may catch a glimpse, particularly vivid, of the rough-and-ready life of the British tar. “Memorandum that on or about the five and twentieth day of February, 1683, (English style) John Jacques, late belonging to the ship St. Thomas, (whereof Augustine Fincham is now master,) bachelor, being of sound and perfect mind and memory, and with an intent to make his last will and testament nuncupative, did utter and declare these or the like words following, viz.: being asked by Mary Anderson, his landlady, how she should be paid what was due to her, the said deceased made answer, namely: ‘What I have I give to you as soon as I am dead; do you go and administer and take my wages and that will satisfy you.’”

Perhaps some novelist might weave his web round this landlady and her lodger. Another sailor gives all to his landlady, one evidently who knew how to please. “Memorandum that upon or about the month of October in the year ... 1665, Richard Blackman, late of the parish of Stepney, ... mariner, deceased, ... made published and declared his last will and testament nuncupatively or by word of mouth: ... ‘I give leave and bequeath all and singular my goods chattels debts and estate whatsoever unto my loving landlady Elizabeth Cooke, the wife of Thomas Cooke mariner.’”

Witnesses to such wills frequently forgot the adage de mortuis nil nisi bonum. They seem to add touches which are unnecessary and show the deceased, even at such an hour, not in his most amiable light. But we owe to them many a curious picture, many an amusing trait of human nature. At this distance of time the coarser details are humorous rather than distressing.

In the will of Edward Newby we are not let into any family secrets, though curiosity is aroused. “Memorandum that on or about the three and twentieth of March, 1683, (S.A.) Edward Newby late of the ship called the Grafton upon the seas, bachelor, being of perfect mind and memory, did, with a serious intent to make his last will and testament nuncupative, nuncupate utter and declare these or the like words, viz.: ‘If it should please God that I should do any otherwise than well on shipboard I give all my wages, and whatsoever else belonging unto me, unto my messmate, (meaning Thomas Foster), and I make him executor of all that I have. And if it please God that I live to come on shore none of my relations shall be one penny the better of what belongs to me.’”

In the following we are able to pry a little further into the life of a mariner, as far back as the sixteenth century. Its vigour smacks of those adventurous days, if not wholly edifying for one about to take leave of land and sea for ever. “Memorandum that Thomas Smith, late whiles he lived of London, gent., being captain at sea of a frigate or ship called the Morning Star, belonging to the Earl of Cumberland, being the 26th, 27th, and 28th of August a.d. 1594 or thereabouts chased upon the high seas by a fleet of Spaniards of twenty two sail or thereabout ... and in great danger of taking, and having escaped that peril, within a day or two was demanded and asked by some that were in the frigate what he would have done with his goods and substance, and how he would have the same bestowed if he should happen to die or be taken or slain in that dangerous voyage. Whereupon the said Thomas Smith answered and said that, ‘in case I shall die be taken or slain in this voyage, I give all that I have to my brother Edward Smith, for that he hath followed me in these actions and applied himself to my business, and hath been at the getting of part thereof.’ And being asked whether he had any other brother, and what he would give him, he replied that ‘as for my other brother, let him content himself with that he hath had already, for he shall have no more,’ saying further that ‘he hath had a great deal of money of me already.’ And being put in mind of his wife and asked whether he would give her nothing, he answered cursing her and said that she had played the lewd woman, and that she hath had enough already, and should suffice herself with that she had, for more she should not have; adding further, ‘my brother Edward, if I die, shall have all that I have,’ or the like in effect: which words the said Thomas did speak and utter in the presence of John Thomas, William Trigger, James Bell, George Lone, Thomas Foster, and others.”

CHAPTER VI
THE POLYCODICILLIC WILL

“She bequeaths, she repeats, she recalls a donation, And ends by revoking her own revocation; Still scribbling or scratching some new codicil, Oh! success to the woman who makes her own will.” “Ancient, Curious, and Famous Wills.”

In preceding papers examples have been given of wills delayed till the eleventh hour: but to some the making of wills and codicils becomes, at times, a hobby, if not an obsession. “What is a poor woman with no family to do? Affection for nieces must fluctuate.” “You can always make a codicil,” answered the lawyer, in the “Light Side of the Law.” Changes and counter-changes in wills have not been neglected by writers as a source of literary material. Revocations made in anger or in sheer vacillation of mind are excellent bases for tales of adventure or love.

The title of this essay has been taken from a passage in R. C. Trevelyan’s operatic fable “Sisyphus.” The king Sisyphus is dying, but there is still a fear that he may revive sufficiently to tamper with his testamentary writings. Even now his last will may be annulled.

Chorus. “Hush! Beware! Beware! But now his thin lips stirred. Have a care! He liveth still. Speak no rash word, Lest ye be overheard, And your expectations crossed, When he alters a tenth time to your cost, With a last bitter codicil, His nine-times-altered will.

Sisyphus.‘My wife, my sons, draw near my bed, for I Once more would speak with you before I die, Where is my lawyer? Let him fetch my will. I wish to add another codicil.’

Chorus.Another codicil! Another still To his polycodicillic will! Ah! what may this portend? ’Tis the tenth he hath penned. Soon may death seal an end.”

To discover the real wishes and intentions of a testator is often a difficult matter, when, in addition to an already voluminous will, codicil after codicil is added, clause after clause revoked. At a first reading wrong impressions may easily be taken and bitter disappointment caused. Only those who have handled such documents can realise the confusion which may arise by the indiscreet addition of codicils. It often happens, too, that while the will is legally and carefully drawn and attested, the codicils are carelessly and inadequately framed. Among the Romans there was an informal will called codicillus, but the English codicil requires as strict formality as the will. It is wiser to start afresh.

Anne Judith Bristow, in 1784, at the age of 76, saw the necessity of adjusting her will to events. It is translated from the French. “This is the sixth will which I have made since the year 1776, some changes having happened which made me strike out and obliterate, without, however, writing it wholly again: this I hope will be the last, for I have completed the age of 76 years. I every day expect death. I dread dotage still more. Therefore, without losing time, here is that which I wish to be carried into execution at my decease.” She lived four more years, and the changes and chances of her mortal life were such that she had, after all, to make two codicils, in the first of which, dated 19th of July, 1788, we learn that a daughter mentioned in the will was now dead. The second codicil was dated September 7, 1788. Soon after that she must have died, for on January 26, 1789, the will and codicils were proved.

A curious case was brought before the court not long ago, in which there were many wills, and the validity of a will made forty-four years before the death of the testator was upheld. It was the case of a lunatic, who, during the period of his lunacy made six wills, none of which (as being those of a person of unsound mind) had any force. The deceased, not being of a dangerous disposition, had some liberty, and availed himself of his opportunities to deposit wills at Somerset House. Depositories for the wills of the living are provided under the Wills Act of 1837: and there they were by him solemnly placed, and the Registrar’s receipt was duly given. Other testamentary documents were deposited elsewhere. The making of wills seems certainly with him to have been an obsession. It is strange to think that it was necessary to go back forty-four years to find a valid will, and that for all the latter part of his life he was, as it were, non-existent. But how narrow is the line which distinguishes the sound from the unsound mind is shown by innumerable actions in the Probate Court! It was not for nothing that in olden days testators affirmed their sanity and thanked God for it.

A good instance of an ordinary polycodicillic will is that of Margaret Evans, who, during the ten years from 1775 to 1785, made a will with twelve codicils annexed. Each codicil she introduces as a “memorandam [sic] by way of addition” to her will. But as an instance of something more than ordinary it would be hard to surpass the wills and testamentary papers, proved in 1760 and 1761, of Dr. Thomas Cheyney, Dean of Winchester. These papers range in date from 1724 to 1759, a nightmare, doubtless, to his luckless executors and friends.

The irony of this case is that the Dean wished his affairs to be administered privately. “I desire my three executors, as far as practicable, to keep all or any resolutions they shall take relating to my affairs secret among themselves, as I design and desire in all things they may remain accountable to their own consciences and to each other, and not to any other person in any place whatsoever.” But such was the chaos of documents that it was necessary to take the directions of a Court of Equity, the executors stating that they “from the multiplicity of the said papers, and the contents of the same, find it impracticable for them to administer and transact the said testator’s affairs with that privacy and secrecy, as he seems by the general tenor of his said will and codicil to have designed, ... and that it will be necessary for them to take the directions of a Court of Equity concerning the same.”

It is impossible to give a just idea of these documents, covering a period of thirty-five years of changeful life. He is constantly putting on patches, until the whole becomes a piece of motley. He seems to have expected death more than once. The first paper, dated 13th of April, 1724, begins: “I Thomas Cheyney, fellow of the College near Winchester, being by God’s will at this time of a sound mind, though labouring under great bodily infirmities, which daily call upon me to remember my latter end, have ... wrote this my last will and testament.” The second paper, dated November 3rd of the same year, is addressed to his mother. “Hond. Madam, As I have by will given the greatest part of my estate entirely into your disposal (being desirous you should enjoy it and be made as happy as possible while in this world) I make no doubt but, if you survive me, you will as well out of regard to justice as my request immediately after my death make a will, and therein take effectual care of what I here recommend to you.... This I have writ in haste to supply the defects of my will now made, in case I die before I make a new one, which I intend in a few months when my affairs will be better settled, if it please God to spare me so long.” The fourth paper is dated June 5, 1732, and begins, “Now about to go to London, in case I never return.”

But the last papers, which he regarded as his real will and codicil, were made when death was not far from him, on July 4 and 6, 1759. The will begins: “I Thomas Cheyney, Dean of the Cathedral Church of Winchester, being now of sound mind and not forgetful of my mortality do make and declare this to be my last will and testament, hereby revoking all other wills formerly by me made, which however are not destroyed, because they may, though of no validity in law, be of some use to my executors. And first I recommend into Thy hands, Almighty and Everlasting God, my immortal soul, beseeching Thee in all changes to keep it close unto Thyself, and that I may in the day of Judgment find such mercy as I shall stand in need of, thro’ the merits of a blessed Redeemer.” It is in the codicil that he desires secrecy, as already mentioned, and he concludes by desiring his executors to “destroy unread all such letters as they know or suspect to be of the Duchess of Devonshire’s writing, and to take all proper care that no other letters may be divulged.”

CHAPTER VII
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PIETY

“Thou say’st thy will is good, and glory’st in it, And yet forget’st thy Maker ev’ry minute: Say, Portio, was there ever Will allow’d When the testator’s mem’ry was not good?” Quarles.

It was said that such expressions of religious faith as those of Dr. Johnson and his namesake were still frequent in the eighteenth century, and still to some extent formal. There is an interesting commentary on this in the will of the Rev. Philip Doddridge, D.D., the famous writer and divine. His will is dated June 11, 1741, and was proved with a codicil on the 31st of December, 1751. “Whereas it is customary on these occasions to begin with recommending the soul into the hands of God thro’ Christ, I do it not in mere form but with sincerity and joy, esteeming it my greatest happiness that I am taught and encouraged to do it by that glorious Gospel, which having most assuredly believed I have spent my life in preaching to others, and esteem an infinitely greater treasure than all my little worldly store, or possessions ten thousand times greater than mine.”

In his will dated 13th of May, 1751, and proved in December the same year, another divine, the Rev. Obadiah Hughes, D.D., recommends his soul to God in a peculiarly touching dedication. We cannot but believe in its sincerity and strength. “In the name of God, Amen. I Obadiah Hughes, of Aldermanbury, London, Minister of the Gospel and Doctor in Divinity, (being sensible of the frailty and uncertainty of life, and reckoning it a duty of very great importance incumbent upon every man to set his house in order, as well as his heart, before he dies,) do make this my last will and testament in manner following. I recommend my soul into the hands of God, to whom I am humbly bold thro’ Jesus Christ to claim a relation as my God and my Father; and though conscious to myself of great unworthiness, yet I hope to be accepted in the beloved Son of God, and for His sake to obtain mercy and pardon and life eternal. This Jesus I have endeavoured to serve in the Gospel, with great sincerity, I trust, tho’ with many infirmities and too much remissness; with Him I have long ago lodged my everlasting concerns, and I do now most solemnly in the views and expectation of another world declare that I receive Christ Jesus by faith as my Lord, and repose an unshaken confidence in Him as my all-sufficient Saviour; and according to the constitution of the Covenant of Grace, as a penitent returning believing sinner, I hope for Christ’s sake to be made a partaker of an inheritance with the Saints in light, at that awful season when my soul and body shall by death be parted. And in those regions of immortal bliss I hope with inconceivable joy to meet the departed spirit of my late most dearly beloved wife, which I doubt not has safely reached its heavenly home upon its dislodgment from the body—Lord Jesus Christ, let not this hope leave me ashamed, nor my soul finally miscarry.”

Truly in wills we are delighted with intimacies that elsewhere are seldom seen. Here, again, is a familiar touch in one of Dean Cheyney’s many codicils, already quoted in part: “Hond. Madam, As I have by will given the greatest part of my estate entirely unto your disposal (being desirous you should enjoy it and be made as happy as possible whilst in this world), I make no doubt but, if you survive me, you will as well out of regard to justice as my request, immediately after my death make a will, and therein take effectual care of what I here recommend to you.... This I have writ in haste to supply the defects of my will now made, in case I die before I make a new one; which I intend in a few months when my affairs will be better settled, if it please God to spare me so long. I have nothing to add but that I shall with my last and earnest prayers commend you to the providence of God, hoping that He will, in such way as He knows best, supply the loss of friends and have you always in His holy keeping, and conduct you in His own appointed time to those happy mansions where all tears will be wiped away from your eyes. If you fix your thoughts here, (as you ought,) you will soon learn to despise the world and all its uncertain goods. Have no thought of me, but if any let it be that I am taken out of a very miserable life, and wish me not out of that happiness everlasting which through the merits of Christ Jesus I hope to be made partaker of in another world. Adieu! Your dutiful son, Thomas Cheyney. Nov. 3rd, 1724.”

The Dean seems to have lived in constant apprehension of death: in April, 1724, he was “labouring under great bodily infirmities which daily call upon me to remember my latter end”; but he lived till 1759, being in that year “of sound mind and not forgetful of my mortality.” Twice in his testamentary papers he commends his soul to God in prayer. “And so I once more commend myself to Thee, O Father of Spirits, professing myself to die, however wickedly and unprofitably I have lived, in the Christian religion as taught in the Church of England, lamenting her divisions and disputes about obscure and unnecessary things, being in peace and charity with all the world.” (1735.) “And first I recommend into Thy hands, Almighty and Everlasting God, my immortal soul, beseeching Thee in all changes to keep it close unto Thyself, and that I may in the day of Judgment find such mercy as I shall stand in need of through the merits of a blessed Redeemer.” Wills sometimes begin or break out thus in prayer. “Good God direct me in this and all other good things which I shall go about,” cries Phillippa Jones in 1768, and Samuel Gillam in 1787: “O Lord, Thou art great and good, but I am a vile sinner; give me all the mercies I stand in need of for time and for eternity, for the sake of Jesus Christ; and through Him accept all my thankgivings for whatever I have and hope for: To the Father Son and Holy Spirit be eternal glory, Amen.” The Rev. Richard Forster (1728) most humbly commends his soul “into the hand of God the faithful Creator, most earnestly beseeching Him that through the merits and mediation of the merciful Redeemer who purchased it by His blood, being purged and cleansed from all the defilement contracted in this miserable and naughty world, the lusts of the flesh, or the wiles of Satan, and being sanctified by the Holy Ghost, it may be precious in the sight of the glorious Trinity, and be presented without spot in the presence of the Divine Majesty.”

Of peculiar interest, again, are some of the wills of French Protestants in this century. Two may be quoted as differing types, which yet help to illustrate one another as well as the times they represent. The first is that of John Lacombe, translated (indifferently) from the French and proved on May 4, 1702. “In the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen. I John Lacombe underwritten, born in the city of St. Hipolite, ... having settled my house and lived the greatest part of my time in the city of Paris, after having received so many graces and favours from the mercy of God in all the course of my life, and chiefly in this time of affliction and grief for His Church in which so many persons do sigh after the liberty of serving Him purely according to the motives of their conscience, I render Him my most humble actions of grace, and desire that one may know after me that I do bless Him eternally from the profoundest of my heart, for the kindness which He hath done me for conducting me through His providence in this city wherein I find the pureness of His service, and the means to render Him my adorations, in mind and truth according to His word. I am come into it with the five children which it hath pleased God to leave me of a greater number which He had given me. I have still in France Elizabeth Beauchamp my wife, their mother. I hope that God shall grant me grace to see her in this country to end together the few days which remain to us: to live and to die in it in peace and tranquillity, that is the prayer which I make daily to God. And as I am advanced in years, being in my seventy fifth year, very infirm of body, but of sound mind and understanding by the grace of God, and that the hour of my death is as much uncertain as it is sure, I am upon the watch expecting the time of my going off. I beg instantly to my God the forgiveness of my sins, and to grant me mercy for the sake and through the merits and intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ, my only Redeemer. I invoke all the adorable Trinity, one only God, eternally blessed. And desiring to live and die in the profession of the reformed religion, I pray God when my time shall be come to receive me in His rest.”

The will of Isaac Rigoullott (1720), translated out of Dutch, is more truculent. “In the Name of God, Amen. Because death is certain and the hour thereof uncertain, after having recommended my body and soul to God by Jesus Christ our Lord through His Holy Spirit, and being come out of France by reason of the persecution against our holy Christian religion, forcing us to worship the Bread and Wine as being the flesh and bone of our Lord Jesus Christ, making us to believe in the invocation of Saints, the imaginary fire of Purgatory, and other falsehoods inspired by the spirit of the Devil, to worship the true God in spirit and in truth as He hath commanded us in His holy word in the Old and New Testament, I Isaac Rigoullott ... give,” &c.

We are sometimes surprised, considering their characters, with the lack of this or that feature in the wills of well-known men; but it would, indeed, have been a surprise and a disappointment if Alexander Cruden, the writer of the famous “Concordance,” had not expressed in his will something, at least, of his doctrinal views and pious soul. Written with his own hand, and signed and sealed at Aberdeen, April 10, 1770, his will thus begins: “In the name of God, Amen. I Alexander Cruden, late a citizen and stationer of London, now living at Aberdeen, being through the goodness of God sound in body and mind, do make and ordain this to be my last will and testament. I acknowledge that I am a miserable sinner by nature and life, being descended from the first Adam, who by his fall in sinning against God hath involved himself and his posterity in sin and misery. And I desire grace at all times, by a true and saving faith, to look for redemption and salvation through the blood and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ, the second Adam and God Man Mediator, who by His wonderful incarnation obedience and death hath satisfied divine justice, and purchased salvation for all who are enabled truly to believe in this all sufficient and suitable Saviour, and to receive Him as their Prophet Priest and King, and to rest and rely upon Christ and His Righteousness alone for pardon and eternal Salvation. And I desire that my body may be decently buried in the Church yard of Aberdeen, where my pious father and his family are interred.”

These are elaborate instances of piety in the eighteenth century; short and general phrases as “I resign my soul into the hands of my Almighty Creator, in the hopes of a glorious resurrection through the merits and mediation of His blessed Son Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Redeemer, ” contained in the will of John Pybus (1789), are frequently to be found. More uncommon is the confession of George Baker (1770), considering the usual tone of contrition and penitence in wills. “In the Name of the Eternal and Everlasting God the great Creator and Disposer of all things, Whose divine law has been my study and His sacred paths my supreme delight, I George Baker, of the Inner Temple, London, Esquire, do make this my last will and testament.”

In Mrs. Gaskell’s “Sylvia’s Lovers” is the following passage: “Has thee put that I’m in my sound mind and seven senses? Then make the sign of the Trinity, and write ‘In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.’” “Is that the right way o’ beginning a will?” said Coulson, a little startled. “My father and my father’s father, and my husband had it atop of theirs, and I’m noane going for to cease fra’ following after them, for they were godly men, though my husband were o’ t’ episcopal persuasion.” It would be necessary to remember how largely tradition and custom count, if we were to examine wills carefully and thoroughly for the purpose of studying the piety of this or that period of English life. Yet it can be seen how valuable these prefaces are. Elaborate or simple, there is much to learn and mark in them. But it is curious to observe that George Herbert (to leave the eighteenth century for a moment), and William Law, two of the most pious souls of their periods, use very few words in their religious dedications. The first says simply: “I George Herbert, recommending my soul and body to Almighty God that made them, do thus dispose of my goods.” William Law, in terms only a little more elaborate, thus begins: “I William Law, of Kings Cliffe, in the County of Northampton, Clerk, being I bless God in good health of body and soundness of mind, do make this my last will and testament in manner and form following, that is to say: Imprimis: I humbly recommend my soul to the mercies of God in Christ Jesus, and my body I commit to the earth to be interred in the Church yard of Kings Cliffe aforesaid, at the discretion of my executrix.”

CHAPTER VIII
THE DEAD HAND

“With this thread from out the tomb my dead hand shall tether thee!”

Francis Thompson.

John Oliver Hobbes, in “The Dream and the Business,” makes Firmalden’s uncle leave to him £5,000 a year, on condition that he should become and remain a Congregational minister. “My uncle meant well by his will,” Firmalden said, “but I must have my independence. That money binds me hand and foot. I have no rage against wealth as wealth. I like it. But I must either earn it or inherit it unconditionally.”

In “Maid’s Money” Mrs. Dudeney makes “old Aunt Eliza” leave to Amy and Sarah, cousins, her wealth and her house in Cornwall on the condition that they always live there together and unmarried. “Listen!” says Diana to David in Mrs. Barclay’s “The Following of the Star.” “There was a codicil to Uncle Falcon’s will—a private codicil known only to Mr. Inglestry and myself, and only to be made known a year after his death, to those whom, if I failed to fulfil its conditions, it might then concern. Riverscourt, and all this wealth, are mine, only on condition that I am married within twelve months of Uncle Falcon’s death. He has been dead eleven.”

Mrs. Craigie’s, Mrs. Dudeney’s, and Mrs. Barclay’s imaginary wills are no less binding and coercive than many real wills seek to be. Conditional legacies are indeed become a byword, and are often of a difficult, not to say preposterous, nature.

G. K. Chesterton in “Orthodoxy” has a fanciful but suggestive passage, in which he conceives of life itself as so strange a legacy that man must not gape or wonder if the conditions too are strange. “If I leave a man in my will ten talking elephants and a hundred winged horses, he cannot complain if the conditions partake of the slight eccentricity of the gift. He must not look a winged horse in the mouth.” Legally, it may be of interest to note in passing, a devise of property on an impossible condition will not take effect. If a man is to inherit lands on condition that he goes from Britain to Rome in an hour, he will not (until flying-machines are more perfect) ever succeed to the lands.

Such provisions are stock material in the drama, from Shakespeare to “The New Sin.” “So is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father,” sighs Portia in “The Merchant of Venice.” Lesser comedy and melodrama are much indebted to conditional wills. To take two recent examples: In “The Pin and the Pudding” the rich uncle of the poor hero Malkin leaves him his riches—on condition that he has never been in prison: whereby hangs the tale. In “The Beggar Girl’s Wedding” Jack Cunningham only inherits his father’s fortune if he is married by the time he is twenty-five: whence a thrilling plot develops.

But to study real life. A legacy of £20,000 was left recently by a father to a son if, within ten years of the testator’s death, he should have returned to the religious faith in which he was brought up. The difference between the two sects appeared to be slight, but the legacy was under such conditions intolerable. Another strange distinction or definition is that of “member of the Anglican Catholic Church,” as opposed to “member of the Evangelical Protestant Church”: but recently a testator stipulated that no one should take a benefit who deserved the former appellation.

More intelligible is the distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, and in this respect the dead hand is apt to lay heavy restrictions on the living. That any legatee becoming a Roman Catholic or marrying a Roman Catholic shall forfeit all interest is a common provision: it has even been stipulated that if a daughter’s husband should become a Roman Catholic she herself should forfeit. More comprehensive was the will of a testator who cut down the benefit of any child who should join the Roman Catholic Church, or become associated with the Peculiar People, Faith Healers, or Christian Scientists or any similar religious or quasi-religious body, he “well knowing the harm, trouble and misery caused in homes thereby.” Comprehensive, too, was the will of a minister who recorded his “detestation of all state establishments of religion, believing them to be anti-scriptural and soul-ruining. I have for years prayed the King of Zion to overthrow the politico-ecclesiastical establishment of the British Empire, and I leave the world with a full conviction that such prayer must ere long be answered. I thirst to see the Church brought down, the Church by man set up, for millions are by it led on to drink a bitter cup.... Heaven dash all error sin and the devil from the earth, and cause truth holiness and Christ everywhere to prevail.”

It is strange that any should think it a moral act to strive to bind and bribe the consciences of their children or heirs. It is pleasant to turn to the story of Henry More’s inheritance, where tolerance was shown in an intolerant age. The Calvinism of his parents could not appeal to the dreamy, intellectual youth, and they perceived how he was drifting away from their manners and beliefs. But it is said that his father seeing him one day among his books at Cambridge—not Calvinistic, we may be sure—was so taken by his looks and manner that he went away and set him down for a substantial legacy in his will.

But not only in religion the effort to shape destinies is shown. Legacies are made conditional, for instance, on the recipient remaining single, on not marrying a person named, or one not approved by the testator’s wife and sister-in-law, a first cousin, an Irishman. An American heiress ten years of age was to forfeit the fortune of her grandmother if she travelled unaccompanied by a maid or chaperon of education and refinement, or if she married a divorced man or an actor. Recently a legacy was left on condition that the donee should marry a lady in society.

It is not surprising that wills should occur in which distrust or horror of alcohol is prominent. “My experience,” says one, “acquired as a large employer of labour and as a Justice of the Peace, and my observation of what is hourly taking place, have convinced me that the present facilities for the sale of intoxicating liquors operate to the prejudice, both morally and materially, of large masses of the community, and that these facilities ought to be curtailed.” He therefore directs that his real estate shall be sold only on condition that the purchaser allows no building to be erected thereon for any purpose connected with intoxicating liquors. The condition was to last “for twenty-one years after the decease of the longest lived survivor of her late Majesty Queen Victoria,” and the term would have been extended had the law allowed.

A brewer, on the other hand, provided that, should the licence of any one of forty-four public-houses and twelve off-licence shops belonging to his company be forfeited between the date of his will and his death, an equivalent amount should pass to a University instead of to the town for whose benefit he left his residuary estate. His reason, he stated, was that if the licence was lost through the conduct of the frequenters of the house, their action would cost the town a considerable sum, while if it were lost through the action of teetotal magistrates the town would be punished. A total abstainer, he declared, had no more right to compel a temperate man to abstain from drinking his particular beverage than the temperate man had a right to compel the total abstainer by force of law to drink it. But he hoped the first contingency would make the inhabitants careful of their conduct.

Curious glimpses of life in olden days are given in conditions which now and then are enjoined. Edmund Clifton (1547) gave to Sir Geruys Clifton, knight, “the standing cup of silver and gilt and a goblet parcel gilt, which he hath already in his custody, upon condition that he help and assist my wife, and do not enforce her nor be about her to take any husband but such as she shall willingly be pleased and contented with, nor be about to do her any other displeasure, neither by word nor deed; and if he do anything contrary to this condition, then this bequest to be void.” He also gave 40s. to Jane Mering “of this condition, that she shall profess and knowledge herself not to have done her duty to me and my wife, before Mr. Parson and four or five of the honester men in the parish.” He seems to have had the spark of eccentricity in him, and perhaps Jane Mering was not wholly in the wrong. Would that we had the sequel of the story!

Other conditions and stipulations might be quoted at length, as that racehorses should not be kept, moustaches should not be worn, a certain profession should be followed, a certain house occupied for part of the year, a certain person precluded from living in the house, or “that in the event of the death of her husband, she shall not come to reside within twenty miles of Charing Cross.” Daniel Seton (1803) leaves his son Andrew as residuary heir “on condition he goes to Europe on his mother’s death and marries and settles: in failure of him I give the option to Daniel.” Francis Gybbon (1727) of Bennenden, Kent, late merchant of Barbados, gives to his “kinsmen Leonard Gybbon and his brother—Gybbon, the wheelwright, both of Gravesend in Kent, sons of Arthur Gybbon, all that tract of land called Mount Gybbon upon the branches of Unknown Creek near Cohansey, in the province of West Jersey in America, to them and their heirs for ever, provided they go and settle upon it: if they do not in three years, then to revert to Francis Gybbon my executor, ... the quantity being 5,600 acres.”

But frequently the testator only states his inmost beliefs and desires, leaves a prayer or sermon as his solemn admonition when he shall have passed away. A military man, recently deceased, expressed such beliefs and desires in his will: “I desire to bring home to the minds of my sons and of each and every young man who may hereafter take benefit in my property under this my will, how strongly I hold to the view that every man should during some substantial portion of his life, and certainly during his early manhood, have some definite occupation and lead a useful life, and should not suffer wealth or any accession of wealth or other temptation to tempt him into idleness and a mere loafing and useless existence. I might have so framed this my will as to have made idleness operate to forfeit the interests hereby conferred on my sons, or other young men, in my property, but I foresee that such a provision might, in some cases, work hardships, and I prefer to hope and to trust, as I do, that no son of mine, and no other young man who may, under this my will, succeed to the enjoyment of any property of mine, will so disregard my views herein expressed as to lead the life I so strongly deprecate.”

A Welsh clergyman asked his legatees to remember the motto of Burns, “An honest man’s the noblest work of God,” and the word of a greater, “Owe no man anything,” an inspired command which we are bound to obey. Baron Bertrand de Lassus, lately deceased, who left the residue of his estate to his brother, closes with a noble exhortation: “I entreat him to remain faithful to our family traditions in the South, to love Montrejeau as I have loved it myself, to attach himself to it, to do there all the good that he will be able to do, and to maintain intact and without a stain the honour and name of our ancestors, and I urge him to continue all the charitable work which I am keeping up in our district, to do it better and more completely if he thinks he can do so, to love the Pyrenees and our South with the same ardent love with which I have loved them, and to remain faithful above all to our old traditions of religion and the honour of our house.” But desire, however ardent, cannot instil love and worship in another’s soul.

Parents’ solicitude for their children is often touchingly expressed. The dead hand is raised in blessing and yearning. A Jewish testator exhorted his son to beware of the vanities and great things of this world, bearing in mind the saying “tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse,” and in his happiest hours never to forget the poor. Viscount Lumley, in his will dated the 13th year of Charles II., says: “And out of the great love and care I have to my grandchild and heir I strictly charge him to follow his studies in his youth, that he do shun ill company gaming debauchery and engagements, by such unhappy means having known many noble men and gentlemen ruined. And I especially enjoin him to take the advice of his mother and other friends in his marriage, when it shall please God he be fit for it, if I live not to see it, and I pray God to bless him. And could I have done more for my family than I have done I would, and had done much more for them, had not I had so great losses by the late calamitous times.”

Thomas Hobbes, of Gray’s Inn (1632), had also one especial object of his anxiety and affection. “And whereas the Lord hath left me now one only tender plant for raising my posterity, whose religious and virtuous education and transplanting into some godly family in a fit season of marriage is my greatest worldly care, my humble request unto the Right Honourable the master of his Majesty’s ward and his associates is, that the wardship of my sole daughter and heir and of her lands may be granted to my approved loving cousin Peter Phesant of Gray’s Inn, and Richard Bellingham of Lincoln’s Inn, Esquires. And my earnest desire and serious charge to them is, that they permit my said daughter to be continually abiding and educated with my worthy respected friend Mrs. Moore, if she shall be pleased to perform so great a kindness, and in testimony of my grateful respect to her undertaking the said charge of my daughter I bequeath to her my best diamond ring.... And I further wish that my said friends ... as shall educate my said daughter, as is aforesaid, during her wardship, shall have the further government of her after her wardship expired until her age of one and twenty years.... And I do expressly charge and command in the Lord my said daughter, her weak and tender constitution of body well considered, that she consent not to be married to any whomsoever before her age of eighteen years at the soonest, nor after such her age and before her age of one and twenty years without such consent as hereunder I require; nor to any man whensoever, but such as is of an approved holy just and sober conversation, preferring one of a competent estate and degree, fearing the Lord, before the greatest that may be, being profane or licentious.”

Of Bishop Corbet’s solicitude for his son we have seen something, nor could anything exceed the kindliness of John Pybus ([v. p. 166]). Such feelings are summed up in the prayer of Anne Covert, widow of Sir Walter Covert, in the eighth year of Charles I. “And for my children, O God, I give and bequeath them all into Thy gracious protection, most earnestly desiring Thy temporal and spiritual blessings to continue with them both here and hereafter.” So human and emotional these old wills often are.

CHAPTER IX
WILLS OF FANCY AND OF FANTASY

It is said that Lord Eldon, in early days, would wrest pieces of poetry into the form of legal instruments, and that he succeeded in reducing “Chevy Chace” into the style of a bill in Chancery. The opposite tendency, it may be imagined, is the more common, and from the history of England to the last will and testament there is little that has not been converted into verse from time to time. It is rumoured that the essential points of those prosaic documents, the acts relating to Death Duties, have been versified: certainly the “Canons of Descent” are in verse and in print. Their quality is not high.

Canon I. “Estates go to the issue (item) Of him last seized in infinitum; Like cow-tails, downwards, straight they tend, But never, lineally, ascend.

Canon II. This gives the preference to males, At which a lady justly rails.

Canon V. When lineal descendants fail, Collaterals the land may nail; So that they be (and that a bore is) De sanguine progenitores.”

Little better is the style of most wills which have appeared in verse. Of these the rhyming will of Will Jackett (1789), who died in North Place, Islington, is well known:—

“I leave and bequeath When I’m laid underneath, To my two loving sisters most dear, The whole of my store, Were it twice as much more, Which God’s goodness has granted me here.

And that none may prevent This my will and intent, Or occasion the least of law racket; With a solemn appeal I confirm, sign, and seal, This the true Act and Deed of Will Jackett.”

Such wills have naturally been seized upon by collectors of verse and oddities. But for the most part they are scarcely worth transcription in full, so that space and time may be saved by quoting a few fragments only. A will, “found in the house of an old Batchelor lately deceased” according to “The Muses’ Mirror” (1783), begins thus:—

“With a mind quite at ease, in the evening of life, Unencumbered with children, relations, or wife; Not in friendship with one single creature alive, I make my last will, in the year sixty-five; How I leave my affairs, though I care not a straw, Lest a grocer should start up my true heir-at-law; Or of such in default, which would prove a worse thing, My land unbequeathed should revert to the king, I give and bequeath, be it first understood, I’m a friend, and a firm friend to the general good, And odd as I seem, was remarked from my youth, A stickler at all times for honour and truth....”

Four years later Nathaniel Lloyd, Esquire, of Twickenham, followed the “old Batchelor’s” example.

“What I am going to bequeath, When this frail part submits to death; But still I hope the spark divine With its congenial stars will shine: My good executors fulfil, I pray ye, fairly, my last will, With first and second codicil!... Unto my nephew, Robert Longdon, Of whom none says he e’er has wrong done; Tho’ civil law he loves to hash, I give two hundred pounds in cash.... To Sally Crouch and Mary Lee, If they with Lady Poulet be, Because they round the year did dwell In Twick’nham House, and served full well, When Lord and Lady both did stray Over the hills and far away; The first ten pounds, the other twenty, And, girls, I hope that will content ye. In seventeen hundred and sixty-nine, This with my hand I write and sign; The sixteenth day of fair October, In merry mood, but sound and sober; Past my threescore and fifteenth year, With spirits gay and conscience clear; Joyous and frolicksome, tho’ old, And, like this day, serene but cold; To foes well-wishing, and to friends most kind, In perfect charity with all mankind.”

More modern, but in its touches of human nature not of this age only, is the will of one Sarah Smith.

“I, Sarah Smith, a spinster lone, With little here to call my own, Few friends to weep at my decease, Or pray my soul may rest in peace, Do make my last and only will, (Unless I add a codicil,) My brother Sam to see it done For he’s the right and proper one. I give the kettle that I use At tea-time, and the little cruse That holds hot posset for a guest To Martha, for she’s homeliest; Perhaps she’d like the picture too In needlework of Auntie Loo (So like her,) and of Uncle Jim, She always was so fond of him. Then there’s the parlour chair and table, I give them both to you, dear Mabel, With love, and when you sit thereat Remember there your Sarah sat. My poor old spectacles will be More use to you, alas, than me, So take them, Polly, and they may Perhaps sometimes at close of day Grow dim when memories arise Of how they suited Sally’s eyes. Pussy will not be with you long, But while she lives do her no wrong, A mug of milk beside the fire Will be the most that she’ll desire. There’s little else I have to mention, For, when I’ve spent my old-age pension, Not many crowns disturb my sleep, But what there is is Sam’s to keep: He’s been a brother kind and good In all my days of solitude. And so farewell: no word of ill Shall stain my last and only will; But, friends, be just and gentle with The memory of Sarah Smith.”

Genuine wills in rhyme are naturally rare, but literature is full of imaginary or fantastic testaments, as well in prose as in verse. To such a one Sir Walter Scott refers in a letter to Lady Anne Hamilton: “I always remind myself of the bequest which once upon a time the wren made to the family of Hamilton. This magnanimous, patriotic bird, after disposing of his personal property to useful and public services, such as one of his legs to prop the bridge of Forth and the other to prop the bridge of Tay, at length instructs his executors thus:—

“And then ye’ll take my gallant bill, My bill that pecks the corn, And give it to the Duke of Hamilton To be a hunting horn.”

Whether in prose or in verse—verse not seldom prosaic—a striking similarity of idea runs through them, from the will of the cochon of the fourth century, who gives his teeth to the quarrelsome, his ears to the deaf, his muscles to the weak, down to the will of Chatterton in the eighteenth century, who gives “all my vigour and fire of youth to Mr. George Catcott, being sensible he is most in want of it,” and “from the same charitable motive ... unto the Rev. Mr. Camplin, senior, all my humility.”

On earth all things decay and have their period, so all things may make their wills.

“Omnia tempus edax depascitur, omnia carpit, Omnia sede movet, nil sinit esse diu.”

The idea may be indefinitely extended. Among the writings of Thomas Nash, for instance, is a fantasy entitled “Summer’s Last Will and Testament.”

Summer loquitur.

“Enough of this, let me go make my will.... The surest way to get my will performed Is to make my executor my heir, And he, if all be given him, and none else, Unfallibly will see it well performed. Lions will feed, though none bid them fall to, Ill grows the tree affordeth ne’er a graft.

This is the last stroke my tongue’s clock must strike My last will, which I will that you perform: My crown I have disposed already of. Item, I give my withered flowers and herbs Unto dead corpses, for to deck them with; My shady walks to great men’s servitors, Who in their masters’ shadows walk secure; My pleasant open air, and fragrant smells, To Croydon and the grounds abutting round; My heat and warmth to toiling labourers, My long days to bondmen and prisoners— My fruits to Autumn, my adopted heir, My murmuring springs, musicians of sweet sleep, To murmuring malcontents, with their well-tuned ears, Channelled in a sweet falling quatorzain, Do lull their ears asleep, listening themselves....”

Peignot, in his “Choix de Testaments” (1829) made a beginning of a bibliography of imaginative or imaginary wills, among which he cites the last will of the Ligue in the “Satyre Ménippée.” It has eloquent and poignant passages.